By Al D’Angelo
Let me address the “elephant in the room”. I start with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. Great words which seem to have fallen on deaf ears. We are all equal in the eyes of God, yet we constantly use race and ethnicity to define us. Starting with the President of The United States who promised he would nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court, to the fact that there are complaints that there are too many Asians in specialized schools. Every time someone is chosen because of the color of his/her skin or their ethnicity we diminished their accomplishments; we take away the fact that they are the best at what they do and not just put into a position because of their race. Mayor Adams was chosen because the electorate felt he was the best suited to lead the city. The fact that he happens to be black should be a source of pride for Black New Yorkers because he rose to the position because he was judged by the content of his character not the color of his skin. Think about it: should we hire an Asian to manage a baseball team because there are no Asian coaches in baseball, maybe a transexual to coach an NBA team because they are not represented, how about adding more Latinos to the NHL they are not well represented? As ridiculous as it seems isn’t this exactly what we’re doing. People that rose to prominence did so through adversity and struggle and are deserving of any position they hold. We must fix the educational divide, so every child is given the education and the opportunity to flourish in this country. We must give our youth the tools to achieve the American dream. Some people are caught in the quagmire of a bad education and poverty and the American dream is being stolen from them. This is the reason used to foster programs like affirmative action. By instituting these programs we admit that Black Americans are at a disadvantage because of poverty, lack of education and past practices(racial discrimination). How long will it take our elected officials to fix the root causes and not just put temporary bandages on the problems so that race or ethnicity is not mentioned in hiring practices. Only when that happens will we be judged by the content of our character rather than the color of our skins.
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