It’s national ____________________fill in the blank day (or week or month…). I get it, but I also don’t get it.

It’s important for people to feel “seen” or recognized, but the reason for that is exactly that far, far too many do not feel that way and I certainly “get” why. I was never a big fan of studying history, perhaps because my experience with that was a skewed setting in elementary school (the Dominican Nuns had their own take on history), my formative years in HS spent mostly with history classes taught by football coaches who wanted more to talk sports (which I love) than actual events and then incredibly boring college profs , most of whom HATED and made no secret of it teaching non major courses.

What was interesting to me is that with that background I learned far more “history” from my english teachers and profs (and yes, Dr. Rentaro Hashimoto (recently passed) in philosophy in college). The history was always related to the works being read and discussed, each work put in historical perspective. The events of the “day” that Dickens was writing about (I hated Dickens when I was younger), how outstanding it was that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein as a response to her husband and cohorts dismissing her as a “woman”, the prescience of Orwell and Huxley. What was science “fiction” that is now well beyond science “fact”. Through all of this I developed not only an appreciation for, but a lens to examine the events of the past many years.

All of this is by way of introduction to say how continually upsetting it is that very little has actually changed. There are always groups that hate other groups and try to, and are frequently successful at marginalizing them or worse (or concurrently) subjugating them. Religion, sex, color, gender, language, nationality, sexuality are amongh the flashpoints. The real question is why? Why are so many people threatened by anyone who believes something that they don’t? Why is it seemingly always posted as fear that because one group has something either your group doesn’t or will lose it if they attain it? Why is one “god” good and all other “gods” wrong or evil? Why is it necessary to quote a bible as a ruling document when that was written the same way that Dickens, Orwell, Huxley, King, Stoker, Shelley produced. their literary works, yet the major difference there is that those works aren’t interpreted to allow for subjugation and imposition of will of one group onto another. Why is it necessary that because one person or one group doesn’t “like” something that it should be banned? Why is it that someone who looks or acts differently is dangerous because they are “grooming” folks to act like them (when, in fact, why would they want to do that since they have it soooo much more difficult than those who are afraid of them)

Sixty years ago, this coming August a very poignant, accurate, oft quoted speech was given, I’m sure you know of it…here is just one part:

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. I have a dream today.

I would like to add to that …not by their appearance, not by who they worship, not by what language they speak, not by who they love, not by their gender

I’m closer to the end of the cradle-grave timeline than I am to the beginning (by a lot), but I still hope that I will get to see more of that dream realized than thwarted before my train pulls into the station.

I long for the day to come where we won’t need individual difference celebration recognition events because there is no longer real difference, we all breath the same air.

I guess I will continue to dream on (and hope).