Use Martin Luther King Day to Encourage Inequality too

As the U.S. celebrated Martin Luther King Day, Americans gave themselves a collective pat on the back and admired how far our nation has come from the despair and racial violence that had once engulfed our nation many decades ago.

 

While progress has been made, 2015 shook up the status quo and unveiled for many a fact they would have rather ignored – that bigotry and racism were still rampant.

As a divorce attorney, I see that same veil draped upon the eyes of Americans when it comes to marriage equality between same-sex couples.

This underlying fear can go unnoticed for years as we surround ourselves with the same progressives (in favor of those liberties) or conservatives (concerned morally, religiously or otherwise, but generally unconnected with the African American community or LGBT community).

Many of us, living amongst the comfort of a more progressive social circle, could not imagine same-sex marriage or interracial marriage not being allowed anymore; much less any systematic exclusion of its participants.

However, as 2016 gears up and life after marriage equality normalizes, we are forced to look upon history and wonder if we are really making the progress we congratulate ourselves for.

Anti-miscegenation laws, the criminalization of interracial marriages, were not repealed until 1967 when the Supreme Court, similar to its June 2015 marriage equality decision, found those laws to be unconstitutional.

 

What is so startling is that those who live in the liberal atmosphere believe that so it is written, so it is done. Does the Supreme Court ruling on equality, on its own, really effectuate equality?

Despite the landmark Supreme Court ruling requiring states to license and recognize marriage between same-sex couples, there is still an underlying prejudice and fear when it comes to the declaration.

Just as 50 years after the repeal of all anti-miscegenation laws, there are still large pockets of covertly racist people who do not believe marriage between blacks and whites is acceptable.

America needs to see its history and understand that she repeats herself. We know how this will go. A law does not equal acceptance, and a Facebook like or retweet does not mean equality and freedom for all.

So as another Martin Luther King Day passes, I encourage you to look at inequality as a whole, find your passion and take action. Whether it is the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) or the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), find your calling and use MLK Day – not as a day off – but as a call to action. Your job is not done.

David Mejias is a Long Island attorney specializing in family law and divorce. He is a managing partner at Mejias, Milgrim & Alvarado where he has practiced law for 18 years. He currently serves as the chairman of the Long Island Hispanic Bar Foundation, the charitable branch of the Long Island Hispanic Bar Association where he has previously served as president. In 2003, Dave Mejias became the first Latino elected to the Nassau County Legislature, where he served from 2004 to 2010. You can reach him on Twitter @DaveMejias.