The Content of your Character

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in 

a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their 

skin but by the content of their character." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Today is the day we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It's still relatively early in the morning, but I've already seen numerous posts linking to his most famous speech. It is important to note that we have come a long way since the day that speech was given...but we are still not living Dr. King's dream.

Yep...sorry kid.

We still live in a world where a brown person regaining power draws this kind of reaction. Whether or not you like the president is one thing. That's your prerogative  Politically speaking there will always be people on the other side. But to resort to this? En masse even? In such an(a) (mostly) anonymous fashion is both cowardly and indicative of just how little the minds of the masses have changed in the 50 some odd years since Dr King's day. I'm not sure what, if anything, can be done for people to realize that there is much much more to a person than their ethnic background. That their upbringing,  their experience and their education all play into the sort of person they are. 

Fortunately for me I don't have to see a lot of this in my daily life. I live in a place where the majority of people I interact with don't seem to give two shits about whether you're black, white, mexican, french, hungarian, gay, straight, lesbian, transgender or a monk. Every now and then I'll encounter an elderly person that is clearly a product of their era... but even most of them that I see have worked to alter their point of view.

It also appears that a larger portion of the next generation is being taught that our differences don't matter. This bodes well for not just the brown folk, but for women and for the gays too.

Eventually they won't have to do this

It's comforting to see things moving forward even if they're always coupled with a few steps back. Here's hoping that next year January 21st  is an even better, more equal world for us all.