Drum Major for Justice

Here's an essay I wrote awhile back:

“Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness.”  --Martin Luther King Jr. 

                The desire to reach greatness, supremacy and distinction is in our blood. We want nothing more than to be exalted and accepted, acknowledged and praised, loved and  admired, but soon, this quest for personal ascension becomes a necessity—an urge if you will—burning deep within. But what is success if not a chain of events leading us to believe we are superior to our fellow brothers and sisters? Real success isn’t personal. Nor does it benefit one individual. Real success is achieving equity in a world ruled by injustice and acrimony. It is silencing our drum major instinct and paving the way for egalitarianism. It is the dream within a nightmare.

            We were born in an epoch where the dream of equality lies beneath the surface—fighting to emerge, but submerged every time. We have been fighting to attain justice, peace and righteousness in a world where unwarranted superiority inaugurated the reign of prejudice, where there has never been more disunion among our race. And, perhaps, it is times like this when the message of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has never been louder and clearer: accept your neighbor as yourself. We have been hiding behind a veneer of justice, knowing quite well that ingrained prejudices are prevalent in society today—and they will always be. But when hope appears to be a lingering dot on the horizon, contemporary advocates of justice materialize and dissipate the darkness around—they are angels in the midst of devils. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. isn’t here with us today, but their counterparts are—reincarnations of goodness, love and peace. One such person is Malala Yousafzai, a young education activist who survived an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home from school. And although Malala’s fight for education differs from the civil rights movement of Martin Luther King Jr., the message remains very much intact: equality and love. Malala forgave those who attempted against her life; in fact, she taught us a lesson which seems to have been lost in our hurried age: tolerance and forgiveness.

            It wouldn’t be fair to say that our nation has done nothing to promote “justice for all,” for it has, but more can be done. The United States has greeted its foreign neighbors with open arms, but the phantom of racism never fails to rear its ugly head. At the root, this “phantom” reflects a dearth of tolerance in our nation. We hurt because can’t forgive. We fight because we can’t tolerate. We kill because we refuse to tolerate and forgive. And although the dream of justice is still out of reach, our country has stood upright in one area: we have become a melting pot of disparate culture and rhythms, and it is this singularity which has taught us to embrace the beauty of races, skin colors, and gender.

            The key ingredient to equality is tolerance, and unless we learn to tolerate others, Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream remains not broken but unfulfilled.