Content of Character...

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. day. A great holiday for our country. Not a black holiday. Not a religious holiday. Not just another excuse for the banks to close and the mail trucks to sit in their garages (although Lord knows, it could have been anything). It is a day to remember justice, equality and understanding, and a to give truly colorblind and uneconomic appraisal to the words which were laid down in the formative documents of our nation. Do I think the schools should be closed? Absolutely not. Bring the kids in and let them study out the I have a Dream speech. Let them teach themselves something relevant instead of isolating them through tests and letting mob rule win out in every other corner of their lives.

I read the speech today. I've read it before, but never remembered it so well that it isn't always new and important to me. 37 years old, and it still sings out a challenge to our deepest untruths: all men are not created equal, not everyone deserves the same consideration, never will the time come when prejudice based on what we see dissolves into acceptance of what is. I was born in mid-Michigan almost a decade after King gave this speech. In my 20's, I moved to New York City. Not long after, I moved to Atlanta. I feel like I have witnessed both the struggle he lamented and the success he wished so desperately for. It's a process, but things seem to be moving in the right direction. Dreams can be infectious. If only we could all come suddenly down with a severe case of his...