Revealing Words

It's kind of amazing that finally, the stage that the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. set in his impassioned efforts to demonstrate to America that colour is not a negative - that black or white - all people - are invested with the same potential; that equality between peoples make for a superior nation, that every country owes it to their people to divest itself of institutionalized, let alone social discrimination - has finally resulted in universal American respect and admiration for a black politician, enabling him to contest for the station of president of the United States.

It's been a long learning curve. Forty-five years, during which time the white and the black demographics maintained their solitude from one another, carefully nursed their grievances against one another, assiduously created new divisions. During which time too, reverse discrimination became a reality, turning the original on its head, and in the process not quite ennobling the original victims. The truth is that finally white America - albeit not all of white America - has come to the realization that black is every bit as promising as white.

Just as there is a white aristocracy of social standing, of impeccable academic credentials, there is its black counterpart. Just as there exists a large underbelly of underprivileged and ignorantly racist whites, there exists a black counterpart - doing more harm to themselves then to those whom they despise. And just as there are wealthy and socially irresponsible whites who make no effort to raise universal standards of living and possibilities among the have-nots in society, their black counterparts do likewise.

And then there's the meeting of minds between black and whites, the privileged elites who have attained worldly goods and the education that allowed them their achievements, insistent that it is their honour-led duty to give back to their society. Their philanthropic mind-set elevates them, their achievements in trying to assist their less privileged counterparts, through private charity or public office, reflect well on society as a whole.

The American civil rights movement, comprised of blacks determined to take their rightful place in society with all the rights accredited to other citizens equally, including obligations, has resulted in a new era in that country. The cusp of an entirely new era, perhaps more accurately put. It's fascinating and instructive to look, however, at the distance that 45 years of struggle through word usage rities used in addressing supporters has evolved: by Martin Luther King, and the presumed inheritor of Reverend. King's ground-breaking movement, Senator Barak Obama.

In the Reverend King's incomparable August 28, 1963 delivery of his "I Have A Dream" address, comparisons have indicated some fascinating revelations, as opposed to signal words utilized in the narrative of Senator Barak Obama's wording of his acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination on August 28, 2008, almost a half-century later.

In Reverend King's plea for equality, the words "freedom", "justice", "satisfied", "nation", "able", "together", "Negro", "dream", "children", "must", "faith", "today", "America" "Mississippi", along with "injustice" and "brotherhood", held signal space. There were also the words "color", "racial", "history", "black" and "segregation" interspersed in his immortal speech that galvanized a nation.

Whereas in Senator Obama's speech that enraptured his audience of supporters and celebrants, other words entirely claimed first place in consideration of the momentous occasion. Words such as "promise", "better", "new", "America", "McCain", "care", "economy", "Republicans", "lives", "education", "workers", and "Democrats" gave impetus to his message. And there were also words such as "people", "families", "politics" and "united".

Each speech revealing the context of their times. One a plea for deliverance from the nightmare of black existence in a racist America, the other a promise to unite a still-divided country to accomplish a final catharsis and a long-overdue nation of liberty and opportunities for all its people.