Maybe It Was Only a Dream

When we honor Martin Luther King Jr's legacy and black history month, "I have a dream" is typically what we think of first.  We envy Dr. King's amazing effort and contribution to change the broken society from the 1960's.  But the problem seems to be that not much has truly changed and our society remains fragmented.  It is evident that racism and prejudices still exist across the United States.  Maybe MLK's dream is only just a dream and it will never become reality.  Many of our dreams are difficult, if not impossible to achieve so it seems very possible that MLK's dream may not be achieved.  If racism is still alive and prominent at Wittenberg, where I have met some of the nicest, most thoughtful, and open minded people I have ever, then I have no doubt in my mind that it is still a significant problem elsewhere.  I don't understand why people have to be so hateful and ignorant.  Not everyone is going to like each other regardless of their similarities or differences.  But why can't people just keep their thoughts to themselves?  If you don't particularly like someone, that's fine.  But why air all of your dirty laundry to the community where people may get hurt?  We wonder why there are mass shootings at college campuses throughout the United States and how many of the perpetrators are victims of racism, prejudices, or are flat out judged by their own peers.  These people are victims of bullying and harassment by people that may not have attempted to reach out to them to get to know them. This needs to change, but how?  When we are taught by our own families that people are different from one another because of their skin color, ethnicity, weight, height, you name it, how are we supposed to look at these people with an open mind, and truly believe that we are all the same?  I don't know the answer to this but I think that the majority of Wittenberg students can try to put their differences aside and become a family.  We are all here for a reason and by being chosen out of thousands of perspective students to attend this institution makes us all similar in one way or another.