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  “What has happened to MLK’s dream?”
  An Essay
  By Dr. Christopher C. Bell Jr.
  
  At the “one on one” personal interracial relationship level, the MLK’s dream scenario has always existed and continues to exist, albeit that many such relationships are between a self-assumed superior white person and a black person who knows his or her place. MLK’s dream scenario is a null factor in these types of relationships
  However, there are many “one on one” loving and caring interracial relationships that have no superior to inferior positions. Most such relationships are not a product of MLK’s dream speech, but resulted from a shared openness and mutual attraction between the human beings involved. However, I do believe that the MLK dream scenario has had an uplifting social and political effect on the American consciousness, such that third party negative, public comments about inter-racial relationships are considered to be obnoxious. This is social and cultural progress directly attributable to MLK’s dream scenario.
  In the observable public domain of commerce and business, the awareness of MLK’s dream-scenario has motivated actions the have resulted in significant progress in eliminating open indications of racial discrimination in public accommodations. This progress can be attributed to a large degree to the humanizing effects of MLK’s dream speech on America’s public consciousness.
  The U.S. government and many of its agencies, have made significant progress in eliminating racial discriminations within their personnel and organizational structures and are working toward enforcing civil right laws in many of our states. Much more work remains to be done, but what has been done represents social and cultural progress that is directly attributable to MLKs dream scenario.
  MLK’s dream scenario faces strong headwinds within private, non-U.S governmental groups, organizations, corporations, institutions, and markets. These types of organizations are designed to protect and serve not just “white privilege,” but “class privilege” and the “money and wealth privilege” of their occupants. Most of these organizations may cite their equal employment opportunity policy when recruiting new employees, but they have separate, non-publicized, employee recruiting systems; about which many qualified black candidates will never know. These organizations are work systems that are geared for the success of motivated white men, and are incidentally structured and designed to eliminate black people. I see no way for MLK’s dream scenario to reach fruition in these types of organizations. This is because there is no compelling requirement or reason for them to change their business culture.
  Today, the realization of MLKs dream scenario is severely hampered by the following conditions:
  White racism is now masquerading as something else. Today, only a few racists wear white hoods. Let us remember that racism is more than skin or clothing deep. Racism is mind-deep and a part of the prevailing structural culture of America. My assessment is that: in our law and order, penal, political, and economic systems, racism is still very strong and has acquired modern attire and sophisticated language in expressing itself. Racism is now cloaked in words, slogans, and actions such as “policy differences”, “State Rights”, “taking back our country”, “Tea Partyers”, “the Birthers”, “The Religious Right”, “Voter Fraud Prevention Laws,” “Anybody but Obama,” “Congressional Obstructionism,” “State Emergency Management Plans,” etc. Beyond the normal thrust of low-level, work-a-day, racist attitudes, and beyond the seemingly legitimate rhetoric of politics, I sense increased hostility toward black males on the part of many white males. I sense this increased hostility is because many white males are reacting to the idea and reality of a black President of the United States. This idea and reality is a cosmic-size, ego-shattering, cultural shock to many white males who are now reacting angrily and intuitively by engaging in political and economic backlash activities against black people and the very idea of racial integration. These backlash activities will have a long term negative effect in promoting MLK’s dream scenario and may also be economically and culturally injurious to many white people.
  Black people’s “Jesus worshipping” folkway is a psychological impediment to their ability to strive toward MLK’s dream scenario. Most black people are “Jesus followers” and Jesus worshippers.” To be a Jesus follower is quite different from being a Jesus worshipper. There is nothing psychologically disabling or harmful about a ”Jesus following” culture, but this is not true with regards to a “Jesus worshipping” culture in a black community. The problem is that most black people don’t know the history of “Jesus worshipping.” They don’t know that Roman Emperor Constantine and ancient Roman Church bishops decided, crafted, and idolized Jesus of Nazareth as Jesus Christ the Savior of the world; portrayed Jesus Christ as a (Roman-like) white male, and commanded the people to worship him or be executed. Most black people are inattentive to the fact that European-American slave masters imposed this same “Jesus worshipping” requirement on their Negro slaves, and that black people of today are the inheritors of the American slave master’s religion; Christianity. Christianity is a religion that requires black men to bow down and worship the imagery (real or imagined) of a white male as Savior of the world and requires white men to bow down and worship their own likeness (See Reader’s Note 1).
  Now I say, and so do several other educators and psychologists that “Jesus worshipping” is psychologically, emotionally, and aesthetically equivalent to “white male worshipping.” Jesus worshipping (white male worshipping) is a subliminal indoctrination process that reinforces the notion of white male superiority and psychologically oppresses and emasculates black males, many of whom react in ways that lead to self-hate, recalcitrance, and self-injurious behavior. Jesus worshipping also leads both black (and white) people to develop a white superiority syndrome (WSS) that promotes feelings of superiority in white people and feelings of inferiority in black people (see Reader’s Note 2).
  Ask yourself; when black people/children are required by circumstances and controls to sit for centuries in schools and churches with the image of a white male as Savior of the World before them, what will it do to their minds? (See Reader’s Note 3)
  Before black people can effectively mobilize themselves as equals to their would-be white counterparts in promoting MLK’s dream scenario, they must free their minds of Jesus worship. This means that educated black community leaders, including black university and college students must undertake a bold, self-imposed, religious and cultural awakening movement to end Jesus worshipping and to compose and promulgate a “new” version of Christianity. This “new” version of Christianity would espouse “worshipping only God the spirit or source and sustainer of life and honoring ‘Prophet Jesus’ as a gifted human being.” This bold, self-imposed, religious and cultural awakening movement would result in the firm and formal establishment of the “new” Christianity in all black communities. This “awakening movement” is a crucial and necessary step that black people must take in order to gain spiritual enlightenment, psychological freedom and authentic self-respect. (See Reader’s note 4)
  Short of this accomplishment, black people will never be able to collectively see themselves as equals to white people, because their “religious indoctrination” will not allow them (in their heart of hearts) to do so. Unfortunately, the greatest obstacle to black people being able to free their minds from the demeaning practice of Jesus worshipping (white male worshipping) will be the sincere ignorance and conscientious self-delusion of black Jesus worshippers, the resistance of ignorant or self-serving and arrogant elements of the black clergy, and the lack of morale courage in educated black leaders and knowledgeable elements of the black clergy. However, this essay is premised on the notion that educated black leaders, including black university and college students, along with knowledgeable elements of the black clergy will gather the moral courage needed to compose, teach, and promulgate the “new” Christianity.
  Given all the above, I am still optimistic. I predict that America’s struggle to embrace MLK’s dream will be a slog, but it will be a slog worth undertaking. Governmental institutions may make progress toward the realization of MLK’s dream scenario, but it is my opinion that unless America is invaded by aliens from space or is threatened by serious and extreme outside challenges, the best we can expect within our private, non-governmental institutions, corporations, businesses and market places is 60-70% realization of MLKs dream scenario in the next one hundred and fifty years. (See Reader’s note 5)
  
  Christopher C. Bell Jr. Ed.D., www.drchris.com
  cecebejr@aol.com
  Dr. Bell is the author of two books relevant to the white superiority syndrome (WSS) and its deleterious effects on black people: The Belief Factor and the White Superiority Syndrome (ISBN 1-58500-250X), and The Black Clergy’s Misguided Worship Leadership (ISBN 9781-4251-7806-2)
  Reader’s Notes
  Note 1: To underscore this point, Stampp (p. 154) writes: “On April 29, 1861, Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America in his message to the Confederate Congress said: “... slave masters had elevated their Negro slaves from brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized laborers and had supplied them not only with bodily comforts but with careful religious instruction...”
  Stampp, Kenneth, Ed. The Causes of the Civil War Touchstone, Jan 1992
  The careful religious instruction given the slave was to christianize them and make them “Jesus worshipers.” Jesus worshipping was a purposeful, subliminal indoctrination process administered to black slaves so as to cultivate in them a belief that white people over black people was in conformity with the Creator and the laws of Creation.
  Note 2:(Bell, Foreword and p. 29) states that the white superiority syndrome (WSS) is the internalized belief by black and white people alike that white people are inherently smarter, more beautiful, and better human beings than black people and are more deserving of being in positions of control or power over others because of their greater natural acumen. In America, this syndrome is a direct fall-out of Christian teachings that have established a white male, Jesus Christ as Savior of the world, and the white male controlled societal milieu’s ethos and agenda of white supremacy. The visualization of the Savior of the world as a white male leads many white people to a sense of superiority and racism and many black people to a sense of inadequacy and inferiority to white people.
  Note 3: Some black clergy and laymen will claim that Jesus the Nazarene wasn’t a white man but a black man, or that his skin color should not matter to those who worship him. This claim is nonplus and false for two major reasons. First, in western civilization the Jesus Christ presented and imposed on black people has always been a white male. Today this white male image as the Savior of the world is deeply engrained in the minds of both black and white Americans and speaks to the psychological, historical, cultural, and aesthetical valuing of a white male as Savior of the world. Secondly, we may not know the skin color of Jesus of Nazareth, but we know that in many black people this imagery of a white male idol Jesus Christ that was created, crafted, and established by ancient Romans promotes servility, beggary, groveling, docility, white envy and resentment, and feelings of diminished self-worth; to include an uneasy self-questioning of the possibility that the prevailing, demeaning, white prejudices against them may be true.
  
  Note 4: If one is prone toward the ritual of worshipping, one should understand the importance and significance of worshipping ONLY God the spirit, source, and sustainer of human life. The worshipping of ONLY God the spirit, source, and sustainer of life:
  (a) Promotes psychological relief and mental stability in the worshipper by removing all religiously imposed and debilitating psychological filters and dogmas about a white male as Savior of the World or of any other man-made objects as being divine. One can never be equal to, greater, smarter, or more valuable than that which is the object of his worship. When their object of worship involves the imagery (real or imagined) of a white male, black worshippers have automatically and psychologically granted a position of superiority over themselves to those with the likeness of the worshipped white male. When black people worship only God, they avoid self-demeaning behavior and complicity in their own emotional and psychological oppression.
  (b) Safeguards and enhances a positive self-validation in the worshipper that he is a first class product of the Creation and nothing (none) is greater than he is except the God that gives him life. We must understand that the story of Jesus Christ as the son of God is a product of ancient myths and political and religious control and intrigue. We must also understand that since the days of ancient Rome, the Jesus Myth has been used to indoctrinate and psychologically control most non-white conquered people and compel them to adhere to the teachings and submit to the authority of their white male Christian conquerors, who (by design) bear a close resemblance to Jesus Christ, the required object of their worship.
  (c) Provides the worshipper with a clear mind and rationale to resist, remove, or minimize second party religious indoctrinations or dogmas, thus allowing the worshipper to directly connect spiritually, emotionally, and contemplatively with that which he considers to be “the Sacred.”
  
  Note 5: Historically in race relations, white people exhibit their deeply held “Rudolph” syndrome or the “Red Nose Reindeer” syndrome. This syndrome becomes evident when white people make moves to grant more privileges or work opportunities to black Americans in order to meet a national crisis or to engage challenges such as societal turbulences, natural disasters, economic calamities, etc., that would put at risk the loss of their (white people’s) freedoms, privileges, or capital opportunities. These societal turbulences or disasters have been the only situations in which white Americans begin to see black Americans as indispensable to the country’s well-being and take (cautious) steps to grant them (black Americans) “more equal” citizenship privileges and economic opportunities.
  I am guilty of hoping that America is always involved with some kind of social rights or class privilege protests, philosophical or religious disputations, long-term geo-political competition and intrigue and small but sequential ‘just’ wars. Only under such circumstances of societal tensions will the “Red Nose Reindeer” syndrome in American whites become and remain activated.
  
  Christopher C. Bell Jr.

  Christopher Bell Monday, 05 March 2012 21:51 Comment Link
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  I enjoyed the article very much! It brought to memory the paper I wrote for a college class, "History of The Black Church In America." I learned a lot during my research, but most importantly, the significace the Black Church has on our [Black] communities, and the moral responsibility it has on our [African American] families. . . . And still today, I believe for our betterment we should revere the Black religious societies as the pinnacle of our African American community.

  Cheryle Allen-Spells Thursday, 01 March 2012 12:28 Comment Link