New Clear Vision

Time to Wake Up and Make It Come True

by Jennifer Browdy

On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, his I Have a Dream speech has never seemed more imperative, or more poignant.

In 2008, Americans had the dream that electing our first Black president would lead to a permanent undoing of racism, opening the door to a new age of American egalitarianism. But here we sit on the other side of eight years of a stellar Black first family in the White House, feeling like Hamlet looking from Hyperion to a satyr.

As we gaze grimly at the nightmare of the Tr$mp inauguration, it seems like a bad dream — except that every day we wake up and it goes on, but worse.

Yet I still hold out the dream that the outrageous thievery of a Tr$mp Administration will galvanize Americans of all walks of life to unite under the banner of the 99%. This time it won’t just be leftists and twenty-somethings setting up camp in the parks, it will be all of us — the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans who are going to get kicked in the shins, the groin, the stomach by the thugs that Tr$mp is currently assembling and giving the glorified title of “Cabinet.”

This is not a Presidential Cabinet, it’s a gang of thieves and crony henchmen out to continue the work of the euphemistically named “Citizens United” by giving corporations unfettered rule over people and the planet.

Remember back in the Occupy days, there was a card deck depicting the worst capitalist criminals? I think it’s time to bring an updated version of those cards back, and while we’re at it let’s create a 21st century version of Monopoly too, with Tr$mp hotels going up against Pachamama eco-resorts, Rex Tillerson and his Big Oil against Elon Musk and Solar City, and wild cards like Monster Hurricane, Mass Shooting in Airport, and Next Incurable Infectious Disease.

Okay, I admit I’m getting a little punchy here. But seriously, if you can’t find the dark humor in our current predicament, well, let’s just admit that they’ve won, and go on Oxycontin along with the neighbors.

But no, I do have a dream. I do, I have a dream! I dream that Americans will stop being querulous but passive, stop being distracted by football and Facebook, come together in churches and schools, town halls and libraries, public parks and town squares — that we’ll look each other in the eye and realize that there is more that unites us than divides us; that all of us want a good quality of life — meaning friends, love, good food, recreation, stimulating education, satisfying work, good health … and that none of this is too much for citizens to ask of the richest country in the history of the world.

I have a dream that we’ll come together and realize that it is not necessary, and not right, that so much of our common wealth goes to support the development and production of weapons and implements of war. We don’t have to subsidize the fossil fuel industry that is poisoning us. We don’t have to support the chemical companies and Big Pharma, evil twins that thrive on the sickness of others, aided by their nursemaid, Big Insurance.

I have a dream that we will wake up and see that we are all interconnected, from the humblest bacteria to the mightiest whale, from the flowers in the field to the birds in the sky. Instead of blundering destructively about the planet, I dream we will learn to be alert and attuned to the tiniest variations in ecological balance, and make global harmony our imperative mission.

I dream of a future in which human beings will learn to be truly inclusive, not just with each other but with all life on the planet. In my dream, superficial differences and artificial boundaries between humans will be a thing of the past. We will celebrate our differences while also understanding our fundamental commonality. We will work together to create the best possible lives for all.

The current nightmare of Tr$mp and his gang may act as the catalyst to get us pole-vaulting into this future all the more quickly.

Let’s face it, we’ve been sleepwalking for a long, long time, trapped in a trance that forced us to do the bidding of the elites.

Enough of that. Time to wake up now.

No more nightmares. The spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. is beckoning to us now, telling us this is our time … time to make our dreams come true.

Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. is an associate professor of comparative literature, gender studies, and media studies at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, and is the author of books including What I Forgot … And Why I Remembered.