“Long Live the Dream” The New “Post Racial” Storytellers

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Martin Luther King Jr. August 28^th 1963

On August 28^th 1963, Rev Martin Luther King Jr. told us he had a dream-a dream that transcended race: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm. Today I wonder what happened to the dream. Dr King's words were borne out of the bloodshed of a moral revolution where laws were changed and people marched in the streets to bring justice to black Americans.

These early foot soldiers were tearing up the "old racist" narrative of white privilege and power and they were writing a new story in which ones skin color would no longer be the measuring rod of a person's worth. The "story tellers" were of all colors and shared a common objective that justice is colorblind.

But then something happened-the children of the foot soldiers, the baby boomers-of which I am a part-found that "skin color" brought power, prestige and tenure in the University. And we began writing a new narrative with old racial stereotypes-in which a person is identified by their pigment. People began hyphenating themselves-They'd say "I'm a (insert ethnicity here)-American; groups formed around skin color, Universities had Ethnic Studies.

I once let slip the word "colorblind" around some boomers and it was as if I dropped the "F" bomb. The dream that was fought in bloodshed was being re-written. And we were becoming a polarized people.

Narratives are powerful things-they're windows into the soul of a culture. Narratives are protected by the one telling the story. The "storyteller" wants to keep the narrative alive because to lose the story is to lose power and purpose. But narratives do change over time and over the horizon is a new group of storytellers who are writing a new narrative-one that is "colorblind"-a post racial narrative- a narrative that will bring Dr King's dream closer to reality. Who are these new storytellers?

The new storytellers are the Gen X'rs (28yrs to 47yrs) and the Millennials' (18yrs to 27yrs). A major study was done on the Millennials who are the most racially and ethnically diverse generation to enter our American life.

The Millennial Project http://mass.arizona.edu/millennial/aboutstudy.html is a 4-year mix method longitudinal study launched in the fall of 2005 and followed the class of 2009, assessing the students' perspectives on diversity and following their development. The results give us hope-that one day a person will be measured by the content of their character and not by the old racial stereotypes of skin color. The study tells us that the "Millennials" have the most demographically distinct characteristics and they bring with them new ways of thinking about diversity issues:

"This wave of youth embarking on the shores of academe has been protected from harm and exudes optimism about their future (Howe & Strauss, 2003). These students are rule followers and team players, driven by a need to achieve and pressure to perform (DeBard, 2004). They are arriving with new ideas, values and beliefs that for the most part are in contrast to the generation before them. One of these changing views is diversity. Diversity has expanded from a critical (race) perspective to a post-modern perspective whereby diversity includes not only race and ethnicity, but also factors of gender, sexual orientation, ability, college generation status, age, religious affiliation, political affiliation and socioeconomic status. This inclusive, social justice view of diversity, projected through pre-college experiences and defined by the media has shaped Millennials' attitudes and behaviors toward broader elements of diversity. Race and ethnicity are no longer the central tenets of diversity".

The researchers point out that "Diversity has become so inclusive that it is diffuse, almost diluted back to a melting pot of mankind (Schlesinger, 1999). Students assessed as having a postmodern perspective have a broad definition of diversity and value harmony" and the Millennials
have "Meritocratic values that focus on achievement rather than on issues such as race or gender".

The study also recognized that the old narrative that focuses solely on race was insidious: "the social construction of race is insidious in today's social actions and therefore, race should not be relegated to the margins as several legal contentions have successfully or unsuccessfully argued (e.g. Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger)"

So, if the narrative is formed by the one telling the story-we are in hope of one day seeing Martin Luther King's dream come to fruition. Dr King unfortunately was taken from us too early but his dream lives on.

I have a dream today!