Held to answer

What happens to a dream deferred?

Ask anyone. We’ve all had dreams deferred.

Langston Hughes asked if a dream deferred festers like a sore — and then runs, or does it stink like rotten meat, or sag like a heavy load.

What he led up to in his poem Harlem was that a dream deferred could explode.

Listening to coverage of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington in the context of the daily news, deferred dreams can also be an excuse to let disappointment turn malignant and metastasize.

Here in Portland, on the same day of a march in honor of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic speech, we had a gang-related shooting in which three people were shot. As usual, the suspects are black.

At the same time, in Spokane, Wash., police were still looking for the second suspect in the beating death of a WWII vet. The accused killers, two young black men, are not believed to have acted out of racial motives.

In other words, it’s not assumed they beat an old white guy to death because of his skin color. Had the races been reversed – two young white thugs accused of beating to death an elderly black man – the media would not ask if race were the motive. It would be assumed.

If King could revisit America on this week’s anniversary of his historic speech, what would shock him more – a black president or what too many in the black community have done with the opportunities he fought for?

The election of Barack Obama might surprise him less.

Even before he was famous, King knew that many whites were not racist. After graduating from Morehouse College in Atlanta, King enrolled at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Penn. to study for a Divinity degree. Although the student body was almost all white, with many students from the South, they elected King president. He knew early on that whites could look beyond skin color and see the content of a man’s character.

By comparison, imagine what he would make of the scene three weeks ago at Jefferson High School in North Portland.

More than 80 people (about half of them black, half white) gathered in the cafeteria for Race Talks 2, a series of programs sponsored by Portland Public Schools’ Office of Equity.

The title of this particular program was “Trayvon Martin’s Death: A Catalyst for Change.”

Donna Maxey, who is black and a retired teacher, moderated and she started by asking for a show of hands of how many people were outraged by the not-guilty verdict in George Zimmerman’s trial.

“That’s what I thought – everybody.” (Not everybody. I didn’t raise my hand. Martin didn’t deserve to die, but the verdict was not an outrage.)

“If we don’t start talking (about race), we are going to have a bloodbath, and white people are going to be scared because by 2040 white people will be the minority,” Maxey warned.

She introduced the featured speaker, Anthony B. Gipson, who is black and has written a self-published book called, Respect My Gangstah. He hopes to turn it into a Portland-based movie, and his crew is being followed by KGW-TV.

Gipson did time in prison for “killing someone,” as he casually put it. He’s now trying to turn young black males away from gangs. The audience seemed interested, but before he could get into any messy details (for example, who exactly he killed and why) Maxey said it was time for everyone seated at the tables in the cafeteria to talk to one another about race and Trayvon Martin.

Gipson moved among the tables, joining in the conversations. When he came to my table, I asked him why, if his intent was to steer young black men away from gangs, why didn’t he entitle his memoir, Reject My Gangstah.

A middle-aged black woman at my table turned to me and bestowed a teaching moment: “Gangstah is not bad. Gangstah is a word we use in the black community for each other.”

Go back and read King’s speech from the March on Washington (or any of his speeches) and see how often he uses “gangstah.”

What would he think of the sheer number of blacks who kill other blacks?

Maybe it’s time black folk denounced the word “gangstah” and treat it the way whites are expected to shun the n-word.

Unfortunately, the Rev. Martin Luther King could not move among those tables in the cafeteria at Jefferson High School and offer counsel. But those who are living his dream, the black middle-class, could speak up.

It may be that the black middle-class isn’t that much different from the white middle-class. Those who can afford to, live in better and safer neighborhoods. Those who can afford to, send their children to private school if the public alternative doesn’t measure up. (The black woman at my table who educated me about “gangstah” mentioned that one of her children attends St. Mary’s.)

Maxey’s prediction of a bloodbath when whites are the minority sounds like an echo of Langston Hughes’ dream waiting to explode.

It could be the fear and anger of other George Zimmermans erupting, wanting someone to respect their gangstahs.

– Pamela Fitzsimmons

Related:

Rodney King’s ‘Junkyard of Dreams’