"The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Today we live in an unsure, disconcerting climate for social justice. Although contemporary matters - such as gay marriage - demand our attention, past inequalities - such as racial discrimination - lay in precarious subtexts of society.

Since the civil rights movement, Americans have claimed to live in a socially aware, politically correct, equal-opportunity environment. In this environment, it seems as if no offenses can be publicly linked to race in the brazen manner necessary to exact a warranted and steady reaction of dissatisfaction and frustration.

Angry "race" riots occur, but they are eventually quieted: The re-legitimization of the Confederate flag is defended in the name of Southern pride; people claim that the gross inequalities revealed by Hurricane Katrina are not rooted in racism, but in "urban poverty."

Sidestep synonyms are used to distract from the true implications of these situations: that while the definitive face of racism may be evasive, daily incidences make its lingering presence known.

But racial inequalities cannot remain in the unaddressed stagnation that they are forced into by sly political word choice and convoluted explanations.

Our generation needs a new movement. I understand that the nation has "come a long way" from the 1960s, but there should be no stubborn avoidance in publicly admitting the current state of racist affairs.

The shame of racism continuing to exist should not prevent a whole country from confessing its reality. As for those who feel no shame in racist sentiment, I'll let you know that - according to the U.S. Census Bureau - multiracialism is expected to increase tenfold by 2050. After that, the sky is the limit. In other words, be afraid.

The woman's right to vote, the women's movement and the civil rights movement arrived in waves, representing the culminating demands of generations, genders and racial groups.

These waves arrived, reached their pinnacle, achieved momentous social progressions and then diminished into the past. But with frequent police beatings of African-Americans, the conditions that spurred the L.A. "race riots" and the images of Katrina's hardest hit, we are clearly left with some loose ends and unresolved issues.

However, these same events that reveal our failures as a nation can be used to revitalize it if we choose to use them as catalysts for action.

Frankly, in the timespan of our generation, there have been too many examples of racism - on both the public and private level - to sweep under the rug, or to pawn off on other social injustices such as "poverty."

Racism underlies all of these incidents; and if we could first wrap our minds around the fact that racism existed through the civil rights movement and then recognize that it still exists, then we could demand change. What we need to demand is not some dreamy, pie-in-the-sky utopia, but an open arena of discussion that would lead to a re-evaluation of society's outlook and policy.

Instead of merely reporting on the poverty that causes social discontent, journalists should be able to address the heart of the matter, to show actual examples of a community's reaction and to hold local government officials accountable.

At Emory's level, the Transforming Community Project pushes to create this environment of honest discussion and constructive reaction to lingering racial problems. In fact, this article is drawn from different thoughts of just one TCP meeting.

TCP dialogues help create confidence to confront race as it exists today in order to initiate change.

With the aforementioned examples of racial injustice occurring within the average Emory undergrad's lifetime, we should be on the brink of another social movement. Change is progress, but nobody will listen if there are no speakers to voice it. The evidence is indisputable, so what exactly are we waiting for?

-Wendy Conn is a College sophomore from Las Vegas.