We're getting close to the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, which is, hell, as good a time as any to reflect on how racist we still are. Are we really, though? We are!

Here is some news that may shock and alarm you just as much as it would have shocked and alarmed MLK himself, had he been a Martian who had never traveled to America: a new survey finds that black people believe our nation is more racist than white people do. What is it with these race hustlers and their "firsthand experience?" Is this the sort of positive mental attitude that Booker T. Washington was talking about, white Americans wonder pointedly??? From Pew Research:

For example, seven-in-ten blacks and about a third of whites (37%) say blacks are treated less fairly in their dealings with the police.

Similarly, about two-thirds of black respondents (68%) and a quarter of whites (27%) say blacks are not treated as fairly as whites in the courts.

Other key findings that you can trot out to support whichever side of the screaming match you happen to be on: black households earn about 3/5 the income of white households; black and white high school graduation rates are about equal; 72% of black mothers of newborns are unmarried, vs. 29% of white mothers; the white life expectancy rate is about four years longer than the life expectancy rate for black people; and 35% of black people say they've been racially discriminated against in the past year, vs. 20% of Latinos and 10% of whites.

There should be enough ammo in these figures to continue our national racial animosity for at least another decade or two.

The one thing that everyone can agree on: majorities of all groups say that America has not made "a lot" of progress towards MLK's dream of equality. But hey, the shelf life of the average cracker is much longer than 50 years.

[The full survey. Photo: AP]