Several British journals spent their precious little editorial spaces this week reviewing the "work" that still needs to be done to achieve Dr. Martin Luther King's Dream, first espoused five decades ago, in the raging days of the civil rights movement in America. It was interesting to note how much none of the opinionators on the other side of the pond failed to see that the Dream was beyond an American Dream, it was a Global Dream.
In the now globally famous 1963 Dream Speech, MLK, challenged the United States, nay, the World, to look at its better angels and see what is possible. More than 300 years after British sailor, Wilberforce helped globalize the abolition slavery, the UK continues to lag the world in the treatment and assimilation of minority groups. The rights of the poor and immigrants are routinely tramped on the alter of political and economical expediency. The UK and most European nations still lag the US in terms of opportunities for blacks, women, LGBT and other racial and religious minorities.
The US has a lot of ways to go, to advance and realize the dreams so well enunciated by Dr. King, but a world that honored him with a Nobel Prize must also learn to leave up to his ideals and help all of mankind partake in his glorious dream for human dignity and justice for all. It is time the British and European press take note.
In the now globally famous 1963 Dream Speech, MLK, challenged the United States, nay, the World, to look at its better angels and see what is possible. More than 300 years after British sailor, Wilberforce helped globalize the abolition slavery, the UK continues to lag the world in the treatment and assimilation of minority groups. The rights of the poor and immigrants are routinely tramped on the alter of political and economical expediency. The UK and most European nations still lag the US in terms of opportunities for blacks, women, LGBT and other racial and religious minorities.
The US has a lot of ways to go, to advance and realize the dreams so well enunciated by Dr. King, but a world that honored him with a Nobel Prize must also learn to leave up to his ideals and help all of mankind partake in his glorious dream for human dignity and justice for all. It is time the British and European press take note.
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