Berkley Center

There is no doubt that American race relations have come a long way in the last 60 years. On Tuesday, November 3, a panel of incredibly distinguished guests came to Georgetown to celebrate the life and legacy of the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Rev. Al Sharpton, Laura Murphy of the ACLU, Professor Michael Dyson and his esteemed wife, Rev. Marcia Dyson, among many others, marked Jackson's contributions to the political landscape.

Couched in Biblical allusions, they sought to focus our attention on the struggles and victories of Black America’s years in the wasteland, the 40 years between the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the election of President Barack Obama. King’s generation led them across the River Jordan, but before they reached the Promised Land African-Americans were forced to toil in the desert. They suggested Jackson’s work in protecting the legislation passed by the SCLC and the NAACP paved the way for Obama’s 2008 election. The panel lauded Jackson’s influence personally and politically, highlighting his tireless efforts to reframe the conversation. By the very nature of the event, the focus of discussions was the past, leaving the audience with a strange sense that Obama’s election had eradicated America’s “race issue.”

It was only when Jackson took the podium himself that the praise and adulation ended and the focus returned to the current climate. While the laws have been reformed and significant goals have been accomplished, Jackson called into question America’s underlying values. He pointed to persistent perceptions of the black man and woman in American society. With Coach John Tompson II and Coach John Tompson III in the audience, he called into question how White America perceives Black America’s great success on the basketball court and on the football field. Are we creating a new kind of institutionalized racism, which continues to propagate the idea that African-Americans are only to be valued for what they do for white Americans, be it on the field or in music or television? He is not suggesting that young black men and women reject athletics or belittling the work great coaches do in mentoring, but simply pointing to the future issues in race relations. Equality of opportunity suggests an even playing field in every measure of private and public life.

Millennials are less likely to hold strong racial prejudice or to overtly discriminate on the basis of race. If pushed, many of my peers are likely to admit that we think of America in 2011 as at least moving toward a post-racial society. All of things are positive viewpoints, yet they often gloss over real racial tension. We are less likely to fight against oppression if we are convinced it no longer is a pertinent issue. The racism and proceeding deprivation of basic human rights that occurred until the mid to late 20th century undeniably contradicted the basic values Americans supposedly professed. Rev. Jackson reminded us that as progress is made these contradictions are pushed further behind facades of equality until as a society we are complacent. There is no shame in celebrating how far we have come in finally universalizing our inalienable rights, but we should never let our joy get in the way of the work still left to be done.