Can One Speech Bring Change?

“Every now and then a new leader comes along that really knocks it out of the park.”

Those who really know me knows that I'm not a political person or a believer of religious fanaticism. When it comes to the content of this blog. I usually try to keep it as neutral and family friendly as possible.

However, after watching Rev. Samuel Rodriguez speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church during the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, I knew something had to be done in order to help our community.

It baffles me with some many civil right violations happening in the Hispanic community why a leader has failed to emerge and be the voice of reason just like Dr. King did with the African-American community. 

I sometimes feel like the spirit of the Hispanic community has been annihilated into a million pieces, mainly due to all the jokes, remarks, racial profiling, discrimination, and ignorant stereotypes they endure. Is almost as if they have resigned to live like this… 

“People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they have not properly communicated.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

The Hispanic community, like it or not, is a defeated community.  Dr. King once said “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

 

I really don’t believe we have actively pursued the dream to live in the promised land. We as a community have passively accepted a lie that continues to be perpetrated and shows no signs of ever coming to a halt.

So I ask you... Can one speech change the world? It did it for the African-American community so why it can’t do the same for the Hispanic community? Is Rev. Samuel Rodriguez the leader we have been waiting for so long?

Judge for yourself.

I’m honored and blessed to be here today. I want to thank the Kings family for this gracious invitation. Dr. King spoke of a journey  via the metaphorical and prophetic applications of biblical narratives. He spoke of the people who would make it to the promise land.

I have no doubt that we come a long way in our nation. We come a long way from Egypt were no longer making bricks without straws. We come a long way from the days of captivity, government-endorsed racism, and the abomination of slavery. Thank God that the ___ of season is over. It may not be 1968 or the struggles of generations past but we have discovered that even though we step in there are giants in the land of promise.

There’s still work to be done.

There’s still work to be done when over 50%  of children of colored communities black and brown never graduates from high school.

There’s work to be done when over 30 million of our families still lives in poverty.

There’s work to be done when butchers are more admired than preachers.

There’s work to be done when still in 2011 Arizona passes laws supporting the application of racial profiling.

There’s work to be done when members of this congress that just came in desires to punish the children for the sins of their parents by revoking their citizenship even if they are born in this nation.

There’s work to be done when boys and girls cannot purse higher education because momma brought them on their back and they crossed the “Rio Grande” many years before.

There is still work to be done.

We cannot deny that the giants of fear and xenophobia, nihilism, intolerance, violence and apathy still occupied the land.

But I believe in the dream of Dr. King.

I believe the day will come when faith will conquer fear. When the hopeful silent despair. When the prophetic will overcome the pathetic. When charity will triumph over hatred.

For the bible teaches us a compelling truth. As we look in the land of promise and contemplate the giants, let us remind them that for every Pharaoh there’s a Moses.

For every Goliath there must be a David. For every Jezebel there must be an Elijah.

For every storm there must be a rainbow. For every desert, there must be a promise and for every devil that rises up against us there is a greater God that will rise up for us.

So I come here today to honor and celebrate the life and legacy of a man who inspired me, who inspired us to face the giants not by might nor by power but by the spirit of the living God

So I come here today to speak as an Hispanic-American. Man, we face some serious giants in our lifetime. We cannot as a community, as Latino, as Raza we cannot overcome this giants by ourselves.

We need you!

There are those who said there's a big divide between the black and brown. I believe there’s a satanical force that would like to keep us apart. 

I really believe that!

I believe that if the devils knows that if the blacks and browns come together in America we will turn this nation upside down to the glory of God.

This is our time to come together; and for those of you saying but they come in and are taking away jobs….  the Macarena.

 I want you to know that the prophetic purpose of our community lies embedded in the very construct of the word Hispanic.

First His with a capital H, second panic. We are not here to teach America the Macarena. We are not here to increase the divided portfolios of those who invested in Taco Bell.

We are not here to make you press one for English and two for Spanish. We are here to bring panic to the kingdom of darkness in the name of the living God.

So I believe that we stand at the presence of a new civil rights movement in America.

A movement committed to richness injustice. One were our communities come together like Joshua and Caleb, and with faith in God we will declare the words as for me and my house we shall serve the lord.

So let us be strong and brave.

As we carry Dr. Kings dream to the “barrios” in Beverly Hills. From New York to LA, from Atlanta to Phoenix let us remind America the kingdom of God is not a red or blue state, republican or democrat, liberal or conservative, immigrant or native but for righteousness, peace, and the joy in the holy ghost.