Today’s the day we in the United States commemorate the life and
work of Martin Luther King, Jr., a black man who had a dream of equal
opportunity, and who was murdered because there are people (many, as it turns
out) who viewed—and still do—that dream as an abomination.
Having a racist, ignorant, corrupt, misogynistic kleptocrat in the
White House has encouraged and emboldened white supremacists to emulate his vile
willie-waving in ways I have not seen for decades. Maybe that’s an upside to
this dystopian nightmare—that the façade of progress we’d seen in the courts
and legislature of the country has been revealed to be just that: a veneer covering
the same old nasty, rotted wood of fear and hate that’s festered ever since the
Confederacy went down in fire and dust.
Maybe this is something to be grateful for: that we can see the
termites scuttling about in rages and stained tee-shirts, and that we can take
action before they eat away at the foundations of democracy. We once had giants
of strength and compassion, like King; men and women with moral compasses and
courage to do the right thing. We can hope there are more to carry us forward,
while still there’s an earth left.
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