MLK’s legacy meant more to Jeff as he grew older
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has always been history to me. He was killed three years before I was born. Additionally, much of what he was fighting for is also history to me.
I never grew up seeing separate water fountains, separate restaurants, separate anything. Black or white, as far as I was concerned, were nothing but two shades of the same color.
Of course, I was an idiot.
I grew up in north Jersey, thinking I was middle class. I wasn’t. At worst, we were uppermiddle class. My high school graduating class of roughly 250 had maybe a half-dozen African-Americans in it. While black people had won equality (at least by standards of law) they still hadn’t exactly burst into the white neighborhoods of north Jersey. As a kid, this didn’t register to me. As an adult, it’s obvious: A disproportionate amount of African-Americans simply don’t get the chance to be a snotty kid from Parsippany (I speak metaphorically).
According to any study of upward mobility you can get your hands on, white people have an easier time climbing the economic ladder than black people. There are probably thousands of reasons this is so, but it is so.
And when it comes to money, forget it. Median white household income is about $62,000 a year compared to $35,000 for black median household income, according to a Brookings Institute study. White people have over $130,000 in retirement savings on average; black people, $19,000.
Dr. King dreamed of equality; we’re not there yet.
It’s not just black people who lag behind economically, obviously, and there’s no one thing that can be done to solve the problem.
But acknowledging the problem is a step in the right direction.
I’ll be honest; as a white guy born a decade and a half too late to appreciate King’s triumphs, he’ll always remain history to me. But his overreaching message still rings clear, and I stand with him in the hope one day America becomes the place King dreamed of, one where a man is judged on his character, and nothing else.
Jeff Edelstein is a columnist for The Trentonian. He can be reached at jedelstein@ trentonian.com, facebook. com/jeffreyedelstein and @jeffedelstein on Twitter.