Will we ever achieve the "dream"?

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream - a dream where society would not judge people by their race, gender or religion. A true color blind society. Are we there yet? Hardly. You think I am pessimistic? Consider the discussion around the potential Presidential candidacies of Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. Pundits across the country ponder whether the country is "ready" for a female President or a black President. Miminal attention is paid to their politics and voting records. None of the pundits talk about anything OTHER than race and gender. I would say I wonder why that is, but sadly I fear I know why. It is because as much as we love to talk about addressing the issue we refuse to think about why people act this way and why it is important to understand it. A great case for that is made in this Star Parker column from Townhall.com.

"Paula Zahn devoted two of her hour-long CNN shows this week to the topic "Skin Deep: Racism in America."
After taking the time to watch, the question I walked away with was: "What was the point?"
In my view, the shows told us little that most of us don't already know _ strong racist sentiments exist in the country _ and really never asked the deeper and more important questions about what this means and why we should care...It ignored the most destructive and widely prevailing racist attitude in our society today, one of which both blacks and whites are guilty. This is the attitude that blacks cannot be held to the same standards as whites. "

Until such time as all Americans are held to the same standard of behavior, we are never going to have try equality among the races and the genders. Until such time as we quit defining ourselves by what makes us different (African-American versus Hispanic-American versus women...) we are never going to quit seeing the difference. How difficult is that for people to see?