I Dream A World

"I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn.
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind--
Of such I dream, my world! -Langston Hughes"

This poem is outstandingly a vision of the future. Although this future seems so far away, it's truly not. The meaning being Langston Hughes' words may seem complex but it's not. The premise of his poem can easily be understood with the knowledge of his background.

Langston Hughes grew up in the Burroughs of New York, or what is called Harlem, during the time where racism was as common as speaking and dreams for a brighter future, for people of color, were just an imaginative idea in your head. He grew up right in the middle of New York, where white people surrounded the whole perimeter. Back then no one, and I mean no one, wanted people of color anywhere near the new and rich upcoming of New York. Although we try to imagine what it's like to experience racism, we truly haven't. To experience such a passionate hate that makes you want to cower, to crawl in a hole, to feel like you're less important than dirt.

Our generation can only begin to ponder what that's really like. Maybe even more if you're considered different, whether that's determined religiously in a community or standard wise in school. To be honest we're all different, and that's what makes us the individual people we are. That's the point that Langston Hughes is trying to make that it doesn't matter what your race, religion, gender, sexuality that we're all after just one goal in life. That is to live this life as best as we can and hope at the end of it we made a change.

My dream for the world is that we can all make peace. I know that sounds so cliché, but it's honest. I mean we all define ourselves on who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. Did anyone think that we all seem to believe in a god. It may not be your god or their god, but we all seem to have this general idea of god. We all want to end up in peaceful place at the end of our lives. Just like Langston Hughes my dream is a world we can come together and try to live with others' differences. To make this dream come true will take a lot, but it's not impossible. The small differences we can make will make this dream come a little bit closer.

Cultural Underpinnings of Literature

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion. (Weinberg, Steven)"

Religion is a major part of how the world is shaped. Whether you're Catholic, Muslim, or Atheist. Our beliefs or lack thereof, affect the way you live, love, learn, preach, and accept. As a civilization we depend on our religious beliefs to help guide us through life. Through those beliefs we make snap quick decisions; for example, if a person is homosexual, we as a religious civilization believe that "those people" will not go to heaven -- or whatever the equality is in other religions-- that they'll burn in hell and won't be saved. We take that teaching from two thousand year old writings and apply this to present day. I mean we say that we're making all these advances in society, yet we can't and won't change views to a present day living. It's not that we won't try, we feel safer with our teachings and have a hard time accepting new ideas.

Judeo-Christian is a very major effect on Western-Civilization, but more specifically America. While we say that We have the rights to freedom of religion we clearly specify God. On American currency we have "In God We Trust", it's not just any god, it's God with a capital G. We may not force religious views on each other as a country, but we leave hints indicating that our country should believe in God. We're always saying "God Bless America" or "All men... are endowed by their Creator..." how wrong are we to say who we believe in or not. America was founded and created so that anyone who comes here has the equal right to make their own decisions concerning their beliefs. If we tell them what’s right to believe in then we are just as bad as the countries they fled from.

Another way Judeo-Christian affects Western Civilization is it plays a way in the shaping of politics. Up until the 1960's we had never had a Catholic President. Even then it was still difficult for John F. Kennedy to serve in office when he was criticized for his beliefs. Republican-Americans thinking it would shape the way decisions and outcomes were made. Even with our current president, President Barack Obama, first African-American president, is always being ridiculed. He's always being accused of not being a born American citizen or he's a terrorist. We as Americans have lost our teachings.

The most important teaching we have forgotten comes from the Statue of Liberty. Does the Statue of Liberty not state “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!". This meaning we will not judge people who come into our country. Aren’t our ancestors all from another country? Unless you're Native American there is no possible way for us to be a true American. Yes a good half of the American population was born in the United States, but our ancestors were born in Europe, Africa, Spain, China and other countries. Even those who weren't born in America are supposed to be welcomed with opened arms. If our ancestors were, why can’t they?

I mean we block out all of the immigrants from Mexico, yet we let Canadians come and go as they please. When people come from China or Europe or India we have no problem accepting them into our lives. I mean it's not like they'll bring down our reading and math scores. They won't take all of our jobs. Our religious beliefs are a great affects on our moral beliefs. Somewhere along in our lives someone told us that people of color are not as equal as the "white man". That they're ignorant people who we shouldn't give our time of day. Those teachings were taught from our morals. Which most likely come from religion.

The worst that religion has taught us is we don't accept others just because they are different. Specifically people in the gay community. With religion the way it is today they don't think twice about turning them away from the church. Although churches say, "All our welcome in the eyes of God", except gays. There are only five states that allow same-sex marriages and only 5 states that recognize it. To think only 20% of our country accepts or recognizes how people truly are, but to know 80% of our country doesn't is just ridiculous. We can move on in technology and politics but we can't move on in the way we think people are into a modern civilization. We believe what a 2000 year old scripture says. I don't mean any disrespect to those scriptures, but times have changed. What was once considered right, isn't anymore. If God created everyone, then wouldn't he have created the gays. Or are they all created by the devil, and will burn in hell?

Religion is part of our daily lives; whether we like it or not. There's no way to avoid it at all. Religion is what intertwines this complicated world we all live in. If there was no religion, which is impossible, we would all be lost souls searching for some structure in our lives.