This coming Sunday, approximately half the United States will gather and hover, watching the spectacle called the Super Bowl. Bets are placed. Teams are discussed. Parties are planned. Snacks are bought. Couches are arranged. Everything else is canceled. The country, for a day, is put on hold. Sadly, Super Bowl Sunday is more of a holiday than a national day of substance. This past Monday students and employees took the day off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, yet not nearly a fraction treated it with the same reverence they will grant the NFL championship.

Race is still a hot-button topic in the United States. U.S. society attempts to reconcile the idealism of equal opportunity for all with the reality of privileges for a few: the problem of equal freedom versus equal opportunity. It attempts to solve the issue of race while facing the contradiction that it will only be solved when it is not an issue. Martin Luther King Jr. worked for equality, for a better society and for a unified humanity. And what the Unites States cares about is football.

A society is galvanized by its leaders but it is defined by its populace. Especially in a democracy, we are no more than we choose to be. And we are a nation that requires pastimes and releases from the everyday. However, it is only by the citizenry aligning its priorities that change will come about.