I Have A Dream

It was no less than three years ago when I was a young, ambitious boy with all of the worlds’ hopes and desires deeply rooted in my eyes like the stars intertwined within the night sky. With all those hopes and dreams — I put my heart and credit on the line — I applied to the BMW Visa Card. I was only 18 but I was doing quite well. I figured that my engrossing $12/hour salary would be sufficient for the magnificence which is Bavarian Motor Werks. My brothers and sisters, I was strongly mistaken — my youthful arrogance had gotten the best of me and when I got the reply, no less than six weeks later, my heart was shattered every which way with the cold, harsh unalienable rejection which was so carefully crafted and signed by BMW Financial Services.

I delivered upon thee a speech I have long forgotten. But I shall recite it as best as I can recall. Be gentile.

So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the common people a bad check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of automobile justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Crevier, go back to Tully, go back to Princeton, go back to Pacific, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Bavaria the sons of former Honda owners and the sons of former BMW owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even Fletcher Jones, a desert dealership, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their car but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old folk spiritual, “Approved at last! Approved at last! Thank God Almighty, we are approved at last!”

My brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, that day is today. I received in the mail what I can only consider BMWs’ three year struggle, suffrage and final change of heart. I have been pre-approved for the BMW Platinum Visa Card.

Adieu. Navid.