As I write this on the holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I reflect on King’s vision of a world in which our children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

And it saddens me to see how – despite having our first African-American president living in the White House – racism still abounds.

Racism against African Americans is not as blatantly obvious as it was during the Jim Crow era. The GOP even had a black RNC chairman from 2009 to 2011, and a recent but brief campaign by an African-American presidential hopeful. But that’s like denying racism by saying “some of my best friends are…”

The real truth was exposed for all to see on racist signs at tea party rallies in recent years.

And the real truth is exposed in GOP efforts to pass voter ID laws that would disproportionally disenfranchise thousands and thousands of minority voters – who tend to vote Democrat.

Consider also that brown is the new black. Old-fashioned racism against blacks has morphed into shameless bigotry against brown-skinned people. See the war on Latino immigrants. And see the anti-Muslim bigotry that seems to hold all Muslims in the world responsible for the actions of a handful of radical extremists on 9/11. If we were to similarly hold all white Christians responsible for the actions of domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph, the bigots would call it anti-American.

The fact is that Manifest Destiny was an easy excuse to steal this nation from its original native inhabitants. And the white man’s arrogance continues as he desperately tries to defend this stolen land from “the other”. Even if “the other” is here because his ancestors were kidnapped from Africa and enslaved 300 years ago. And even if “the other” immigrated here legally to enjoy our religious liberty and other great freedoms.

Bigotry has its roots in insecurity, and in fear of the unknown. Might does not make right. But I continue to shudder at the possibilities of what can happen as these frightened white men – the 1% – continue to control our country’s wealth and power.

Things will only get worse for the 99% unless Washington wakes up and supports us – We The People – not the corporate 1%. But – with all due respect to the Occupy movement and last year’s efforts in Wisconsin – the alarm clocks are apparently being ignored as the powerful keep snoozing.

I hope I am mistaken.

On December 31, when most U.S. citizens were distracted with New Year’s holiday plans, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. This law authorizes the President of the United States to order the U.S. military to arrest and imprison terrorism suspects indefinitely, including U.S. citizens, without charging them or putting them on trial. In other words, the President could now arbitrarily strip you of your right to due process.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the bill also contains provisions “making it difficult to transfer suspects out of military detention, which prompted FBI Director Robert Mueller to testify that it could jeopardize criminal investigations.”

Obama issued a signing statement expressing “serious reservations” regarding some of the provisions of the bill. But he signed it anyway. He did not veto it, as he could have done.

Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU’s executive director, summarized the danger that this new law presents: “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.”

“We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,” said Romero. “Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George [W.] Bush in the war on terror was extinguished [with the signing of this bill]. Thankfully, we have three branches of government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA’s detention authority.”

Romero promised that the ACLU “will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.” I hope they are successful.

In the meantime, however, the new law can only do further damage to our reputation in the world – a reputation that Obama initially seemed to be repairing quite successfully.

And the world will now see that even Obama – a former Constitutional law professor – cannot be trusted to uphold universal human rights standards and the rule of law.