On MLK Day Dellums says Oakland
must build on diversity

By Chauncey Bailey

According to Ronald Dellums, to move Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of equality closer to reality, Oakland must embrace and build on its greatest human resource: diversity.
    “We can start a movement [for inclusion] here that can go from city to city and finally to Washington, D.C.,” said Dellums, an Oakland mayoral candidate.
    He was the keynote speaker at a MLK luncheon in Oakland hosted by the Black Board of Trade and Commerce and Black Wall Street - organizations that represent hundreds of local businesses.
    His 45-minute address touched on a number of themes including poverty, classism, economics, education, inclusion, hope, post-Katrina America and the need to connect with youth.
   “If King were alive today, he would say our generation of the 1960s thought we had the luxury of time,” said Dellums, who is 70. “But today’s generation does not. We have to address global issues” ranging from terrorism to environmental issues.
   “Our generation demanded the right to participate... this generation must assert its right,” he said.
    While giving a speech in South Carolina during the 2004 presidential campaign, Dellums said he heard protesting college students chanting the same slogans that were used when he was young and idealistic. “What do we want? Freedom! When do we want it? Now!” he said. “We are asking for the same thing 40 years later. King would tell us ‘I told you what to do 40 years ago.’ King said the most revolutionary thing we can do is assert the full measure of [our] citizenship.”
    Dellums said Oakland needs more fairness, greater access to City Hall, better schools and lower dropouts rates, economic development that embraces racial diversity and a vision for a healthy and vibrant city that is now 31 percent white, 31 percent black, 22 percent Hispanic and 15 percent Asian.
   “We have to figure out how to bring the human family together and move forward,” he said. “Dr. King did not die to change the color of the situation. He died to change the situation. We have to radically alter the condition - it’s not about color.”
    Still, racial pride is important. Dellums said when he was 13 years old he hit a boy who called him a “dirty black African.” Dellums said his mother “underscored my humanity” when she told him he should have fought even if he had only been called “dirty” because “you are black and African... and a thousand other adjectives... a student, intelligent. I embraced the totality of my humanity.”
    Oakland has to embrace its diversity with development that moves the city together in the right direction Dellums said.
   “We are all two paychecks away from poverty. You were poor yesterday, so we are all in this together. We can’t celebrate [King’s] birthday and turn our backs on our brothers. We need compassionate development and affordable housing... we can’t kick the can (social problems) down the road.”
    Dealing with poverty is not a lofty goal, he said, “if you are one of the 80,000 living in poverty in Oakland. Let’s all sit at the table together. Development means nothing if it does not bring jobs or advancement for all.”
    People feel locked out of the system, he said. But with more inclusion, trust will rise and violence will fall. “We have to communicate across the lines that divide us,” Dellums said. “We are going to eradicate poverty and embrace health care and education. I did not come home to tinker at the margins of change. I came to lead us in a new direction. We can be a model city.
   “My generation has nothing to lose. Seventy-three of every 100 back males don’t finish high school. We should be angry about that. And 40 percent of white males drop out, too.