A reflection while observing Martin Luther King Day.

"I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." These words, spoken by Martin Luther King, rang out across our nation all those years ago sparking the dawn of an era where the promise of equality among all men and women could be embraced without fear of retribution, truly a noble ideal from a peaceful visionary. But in the years since his tragic death the promise of Dr. King’s dream has been shadowed and the vision with which his dream was seen clouded.

Dr. King’s dream, that everyone should be judged by their character and not the color of their skin, has been assailed by many since his passing, some intentionally and some with the best of objective at heart. Well-intentioned but misguided individuals and groups continue to champion causes such as affirmative action and non-inclusive groups like the NAACP. While in decades passed these idealistic campaigns and organizations were needed to ensure the quest for equality among all men and women, today they serve to label our society by race, divide our communities by race and grant favor to some because of race.

Under the guise of "diversity” we see some of our higher institutions of learning using the color of an applicant’s skin as a degree of worthiness. At the University of Michigan, students applying to attend their law school and undergraduate programs who were of the American-African community were given positive points for simply being of color. In essence, they were rewarded for their skin being a certain color. Going back to Dr. King’s dream it can be argued that the University of Michigan’s admissions application criteria was the direct antithesis of judging a person by their character and not the color of their skin. Yet, the people that administer the university stood by their contention that their admissions policy was fair. They, in the end and after having taken their legal battle over the matter to the United States Supreme Court, had to adjust the way in which they applied their race-based admissions policy. While the outcome was a bit more to center from where it began the fact of the matter is that at the University of Michigan, the color of ones skin still matters and takes precedent over the quality of one’s character.

Under the pretext of "affirmative action” many major city fire and police departments see disparity in their promotion policies. Where their written and physical promotion exams are geared toward finding the best candidates for the positions needing to be filled, positions that can often carry with them the responsibility for making life and death decisions, racially-based organizations such as the NAACP and Rainbow/PUSH, the latter administered by the good Reverend Jesse Jackson – a valued supporter and compatriot of Dr, King’s to hear him tell it, inject their demand that equality can only be measured by the number of people in certain positions who have a certain skin color. Because of this many times the lesser-qualified person ends up being awarded the position over another simply because of the color of their skin. In professions such as firefighting and law enforcement, where a "team” attitude among all needs to be incorporated lest lives be lost the divisiveness that forced diversity by numbers achieves literally endangers lives.

"I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." When one reads this one line from Dr. King’s speech over and over again it becomes apparent that his dream was to have an American society devoid of racial boundaries, a society that embraced the individual for the quality of their being not the color of their skin or the culture from which they came. Dr. King saw job applications, government paperwork, loan applications and promotional exams that didn’t have a checkbox denoting the color of the applicant’s skin. He had this vision because he knew in his heart that who people are, what it is that makes a person special or not, cannot be defined by the color of their skin but rather that it is exclusively about the quality of person that they foster themselves to be, it is housed inside ones own self not within the color of ones skin. If the good doctor were still alive today he most assuredly would agree that equality cannot be the catalyst for advantage and that the only way that true diversity can ever be achieved is through collective colorblindness.

In the last election in California, the same one that saw Arnold Schwarzenegger become governor of the state, Proposition 54 was defeated. Championed by another visionary, Ward Connerly, this proposal stated, "The state shall not classify any individual by race, ethnicity, color or national origin in the operation of public education, public contracting or public employment.” To be sure, this initiative embodies everything about judging a person by their character and not by the color of their skin. But in the end, it was defeated with the help of groups and organizations like the NAACP and Rainbow/PUSH, race-based groups that have since their conception moved away from the goal of achieving true equality and colorblindness in our society and have instead become the very definition of special interest. It would seem that their "dream” has become very different from Dr. Kings in the short time he has been gone.

In the end, equality doesn’t mean advantage. Equality requires a level playing field. Even in our dreams we should be able to see that.

Frank Salvato is a political media consultant and the managing editor for The New Media Journal.us. He is a contributing writer for The Washington Dispatch, GOPUSA, OpinionEditorials, Men’s News Daily, Canada Free Press & AmericanDaily. His pieces are regularly featured in Townhall.com. He has appeared as a guest on The O’Reilly Factor, The Kevin Matthews Radio Show (Chicago) and The Brad Messer Radio Show (San Antonio). His pieces have been recognized by the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention and are occasionally featured in The Washington Times and The London Morning Paper as well as other national and international publications.