Mlk Vision Fulfilled Say Blacks - Road to the Middle Class

ON THE FIRST Martin Luther King holiday since Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, most blacks say the King vision is fulfilled, according to a CNN Poll.

The poll found 69 percent of blacks said King’s vision has been fulfilled in the more than 45 years since his 1963 "I have a dream" speech — roughly double the 34 percent who agreed with that assessment in a similar poll taken last March.

So, you can say that the election of Barack Obama has about doubled the faith of blacks in America.

But then there are whites, and whites are less inclined to believe that King’s legacy has been fulfilled.

"Whites don’t feel the same way — a majority of them say that the country has not yet fulfilled King’s vision," CNN polling director Keating Holland said. However, the number of whites saying the dream has been fulfilled has also gone up since March, from 35 percent to 46 percent.

What does it all mean, anyway? To ask whether King’s vision has been fulfilled is a “feelings” question. It really asks whether the respondent feels good about race relations.

When blacks are asked about King’s vision, what to they think it means? When whites are asked about King’s vision, what do they think it means?

The truth is: whatever people feel, the objective facts are that blatant racism, expressed in laws that limit the rights of non-white races in the public square, is a very small problem today.

And that’s a good thing.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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