While assuring no wanted e-mail was diverted to the “junk mail” folder of my Hotmail account, I saw a subject line that read, “Hi I am Wilma, and I have a dream.”

Since I was sitting in a public library and had neither the desire nor the courage to open the e-mail, I can only assume it was another piece of spam e-mail advertising some awful adult website.

Still, I found it interesting that the most famous line from Dr. Martin Luther King’s most famous speech has become so ubiquitous that the phrase “I have a dream” is used to promote porn.

I also found it extremely sad.

This week, the subject of race in America again enters the campus spotlight, especially the subject of reparations. Last night (after this column was written) Randall Robinson spoke in favor of reparations, and next week David Horowitz will speak against them. It is certain the debate will extend beyond the Union Theatre to these opinion pages and the campus as a whole.

On this campus, the debate about race is certainly not new. The record budget increase requested by and granted to the Multicultural Student Coalition has certainly prompted discussion, but from the first week of classes these pages have been filled with opinions about diversity and race.

And those opinions have been a central facet of American politics and debate since the founding of this country: the three-fifths compromise; the Missouri compromise; the Dred Scott case; the Civil War; reconstruction; the civil-rights movement; affirmative action. These are but a few examples of the inescapable reality of race in America and the debate surrounding it.

Nearly all these debates stem from slavery, surely the most egregious and awful crime ever sanctioned by this country. I cannot begin to comprehend the horrors experienced by African Americans 150 years ago. For that matter, I cannot comprehend what it was like to be an African American 50 years ago, when segregation and Jim Crow laws were still rampant. And to be honest, I cannot comprehend what it is like to be African American today in a country where racism is still very much present.

But racism and the remnants of racism are not a zero-sum game. We can never make up for the atrocities this country has committed against African Americans. The damage done is simply too great to quantify.

Moreover, attempts to “make up” for past atrocities are ultimately fruitless. Not only can we never “make up” for slavery, segregation and racism, but to do so necessitates distinguishing people merely by skin color.

Unfortunately, “good” segregation does not mend “bad” segregation — they are both bad, because they are both based on the premise that people should be treated differently based on skin color. The only way slavery was justified was by people convincing themselves that people were different simply because of their physical characteristics. It is this underlying assumption that must be challenged and discarded.

The best we can do is pursue a truly colorblind society that places value on people, not their skin. You see, that e-mail in my “junk folder” saddened me because I felt it desecrated one of the most important and most visionary ideals in our country’s history. A society where people will “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

I know some will argue that this dream is unrealistic, that the remnants of racism are too deeply embedded. But it would be too quick to give up now. After all, we still have former Ku Klux Klan members in the U.S. Congress, and all those anti-desegregation protesters did not disappear. Racism did not simply end with landmark Supreme Court decisions. It sounds morbid, but a good deal of racism needs to die off.

It is our generation that is the first to be brought up in a country where discrimination is a crime. We have been taught that racism should be an unwanted exception, not the norm. The results of this progress will not be full realized until we educate our children.

Continuing the lesson that skin color has no impact on the character of a person should be a priority and a means of furthering the tremendous progress that has already been made.

Increased diversity is an essential way of teaching that lesson (do not go lumping me in with Fred Mohs!). But the purpose of diversity should be the recognition of our common humanity amid different backgrounds, not our superficial differences based on physical characteristics. Similarly, attempts to “make up” for slavery should be couched in the idea that we are all the same — such an attitude is the true invalidation of slavery.

Benjamin Thompson ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science.