American Dream Deferred

In a way, working and middle class Americans are in a similar position to that of African Americans in 1951, when Hughes wrote "Harlem"  — on the cusp between previous movements that brought better pay and working conditions that put the American Dream within reach and established institutions that made upward mobility and middle class life possible, and what may become a movement to defend and expand those hard won gains.. And though now we are encouraged believe to ourselves and our fates utterly unrelated to one another, we may yet be united by shared economic pain, to see our shared story clearly as clearly as Hughes saw it.

To sharpen the distinction, working- and middle-class Americans are challenged by an entrenched vision of who the American Dream — even America itself — is for. No, it is not the same as the discrimination black suffered for generations, denied education, economic opportunity and even citizenship itself, because of race. But, just like the viewpoints that justified the second citizenship of blacks, women, and other groups, this vision of American seeks to justify what Martin Luther King, Jr.,. called  "the gulf between the haves and have-nots" rather than bridge it.

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For those who seek it, the American dream is about achieving social and economic security for themselves, their families, and by extension, their communities. Progressive movements have sought to expand access to the American Dream, and the social and economic security it represents, to those historically excluded from it. Conservative opposition to progressive movements has always been "standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'"
By some measures, it's been a losing battle for conservatives. But they are not done fighting. With their efforts to reverse the gains that have made social and economic security attainable for millions of Americans, conservatives are fighting to wrest the American Dream away from those to whom they believe it doesn't belong, and for whom they believe it was never intended.

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Langston Hughes once asked, "What happens to a dream deferred?"; a rhetorical question answered with still more questions. The current economic crisis raises a similar question: What's happened to the American Dream? According to— a recent survey, less than one-third of us are confident of reaching "the American Dream."

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