I didn't say he didn't SAY it...and you knew I didn't say that. What I said was that he never gave that phrase the meaning white Republican insist on giving to it...that Dr. King never meant that this was a country in which racism wasn't structural. He hoped for a time when race wouldn't be seen as a mark of inferiority or superiority, but not one in which race would be invisible...he sought a future in which all racial and cultures would be accepted as worthy of equal respect and that all would be seen as equally valid and equally "American".

The problem with the concept of a "color-blind America" is that those conservatives who use that phrase imply that the best we can do is "not see color". There is nothing wrong with the existence of a variety of races and cultures and religions- or expressions of individual conscience-and sexual orientations and gender identities- freedom is built on respect all forms of human difference and rejecting the idea that any one racial, cultural, religious or other form of identity is "the default", and that equality is based on expecting everyone outside that to see that one identity as the one they must model themselves on or be like.

We have always been a multiracial, multicultural, multicreed, and multigender country. It's time for white people like you and I to accept that it's enough for us to be ONE race, one culture and to the degree that this applies, one set of faith traditions among many others, all of which have as much right to consider themselves "American" on their own terms- as we have the right to consider ourselves.