Today I'm talking about the latter. Specifically, how the Race part factors in, which of course, is mainly the factor!
But first, we visit something I write about in my books quite a bit. It's a premise that's in all my stories, either a little or alot. It's dreaming - shared dreaming (often called dream-walking).
In my tales, the characters generally use it to communicate to one another when verbal or person-to-person isn't available.
Now, a certain icon for social change once said, "I Have a Dream!"
And we all have 'dreams' for how we'd like things to be, individually of course, but I'm talking as community. African Americans, collectively, have a dream of how they'd like to see things ideally. Caucasians, as a unit, would have their own dream-vision of what 'perfect world' might look like. Hispanics too, would have their ideal 'dream-state' for life as it ought to be as well. As I've gone through this list (which could go on, but you get the idea), keep in mind, I'm not talking about the extremists in any of these groups, I'm talking 'Joe-average' citizens, just so we're straight!
Applying the 'dream-walk' theory (as in 'WALK a mile in your brother's shoes), to our specific racial groups, the 'dream' of each one does nothing on its own. Unless the dreams are communicating with each other, AS IN a dream-walk, they're practically meaningless.
Don't misunderstand - I'm not saying any individual groups' dreams don't mean anything; of course they're viable - but the message will never get through to the other side unless group B's dreams actually start to mean something to group C - and vice versa!
Unless communities come together in this way, at least conceptually as I'm suggesting here, social change, to the point of UNITY won't happen ever.
Is this metaphorical talk utterly idealistic? Of course it is. As long as PRIDE is the crux of any movement, it all stays the same. Black Pride, Gay Pride, White Pride, whatever, does nothing but 'Puff Up' the specific group, and generally turns off the other. If you ask me, the only ones that have any merit are those that focus on 'the culture,' not the race. Irish, Spanish, and Italians, for example, can strut the culture card over the race one, and it comes off smoother, inviting. This 'pride' smacks more of homeage to the richness of the cultural history, not the race itself. This is what gets one race more interested in the other, not just the blowhard noise of 'White is Right,' or 'Black is Beautiful.'
Food for thought - something that paralleled in my mind today that could be a step in making the Dream a reality - 'Dream-walk It!'
