A Tough Act to Follow: Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech

Wow. Let’s hear it for Dr. King one more time, everyone. What a speech. That guy is going places.

Seriously, that was good. I mean really, really good. I would hate to be the guy who has to follow that… only kidding! I’m thrilled to be here speaking to you today. It’s truly a privilege. And I’m sure I can add a lot to what Dr. King just said. In fact, I’m confident people are going to be talking for a long time about what we said here today… both of us… equally… maybe me slightly more because I’m speaking last and what I say will be fresher on everybody’s mind when they leave. Whatever, that’s not the point. The point is there is a lot of stuff that Dr. King said first up here that I would have said if I had gone before him. We are both great speakers, and a lot of this stuff comes down to order. Anyway, without further ado…

Webster’s defines the word racism as “the belief that”—

Sorry, just to be clear, at the time I wrote that, I wasn’t sure if there were going to be other speakers today and if so, who would be going in what order, what they would be saying, or anything like that. Clearly I did end up following another speaker, someone very good, and his style and substance was a bit more than I anticipated. So I am just going to skip past a lot of the setup and filler I have written here if that’s OK…

And while I’m already on a tangent and speaking candidly, it would have been great to see a copy of Martin’s speech before I got up here, which I can assure you I did not. But then again, I guess that would have spoiled his speech for me, and I probably would have been so blown away upon reading it that I may have leaked it and ruined the whole thing for everyone else. So I honestly don’t blame the guy for keeping it under wraps until today. I would have appreciated at least getting a head’s up as to how much effort he was putting into his speech, but again, I don’t blame him. Really, I don’t. It would be incredibly petty of me, considering the bigger picture and all, right? Anyone frustrated or annoyed or anything other than inspired by Dr. King after the speech he just gave would have to be kind of a jerk…

Anyway, OK, so paraphrasing what was said in the previous speech and adding my own analysis: Racism is really, really bad, and equality is awesome. I really like Dr. King’s whole dream metaphor. I wish I had thought of it, but I guess that’s why he is the “King.”

Or, maybe if he had just taken a couple minutes to give me a phone call, or even just a second this morning to pull me aside and clue me into the general dream concept he was going with, I could have tied my speech in with his thematically, and maybe, you know, I could have built on what he was saying. I don’t know. Whatever. No big deal.

Then again, perhaps it’s a good thing he was the only speaker to do the whole “dream” thing. You guys probably don’t want to hear about my dreams. It’s been a lonely stretch out here on the road giving these speeches. Not much physical comfort. Memorable dreams? Yes. Appropriate for this forum? Not by a long shot.

Now, when I do dream about racial equality, it is not just black children and white children being equal together, like it is for some other speakers. I am also talking about Latinos, Asians—and that’s all the different Asians, not just, like, the one or two subsets of Asians that people sometimes are only referring to when they say “Asians.” And there would also be Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and really all the kinds of races in the world, and all the mixes of those races too, in every combination you could come up with—even in some very unusual combinations that probably seem biologically impossible to you. And they’re all playing together and being really cool to one another. Also, in addition to every single racial group, there would be cliques of so-called weirdos and freaks and nerd kids, too. And in this dream world, these kids are not only cool and popular, but they are the absolute coolest and most popular children of all, right up there with the jocks and cheerleaders.

No, I’m not knocking the good doctor for not being inclusive enough. Nor am I saying that I’m less racist or have an even more beautiful, inclusive dream of equality than he has. Don’t twist my words out of context! All I am getting at is there is a reason they put speakers like myself and Martin Luther King Jr. together—we complement each other. He created a good concept; I simply polished and perfected it. I’m just a dreamer like he is.

OK, time to wrap things up. Really cool that so many people are here today. You have been a terrific crowd. A big thanks again to Martin Luther King Jr. for warming up for me. In closing, I will leave everyone with this:

Free at last! Free at… wait, he already did that, didn’t he? OK, whatever, I’m outta here.