Day: August 28, 2013

Two score years and ten, I wasn’t even a gleam in my Daddy’s eye when American clergyman and activist Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963.

Yet 50 years on, his plea for an end to racism still reverberates around the globe. Are they just pretty words? That dream, while noble may be a dream unfulfilled.

If not racism, then what other forms of prejudice will still thrive?

Are people even conscious of their prejudices and the motivation behind them?

How could people believe and act as if black people were objects to used and abused?

How could people feel justified raping, torturing, and slaughtering Natives?

How can people physically and verbally abuse people with disabilities?

People are discriminated against because of gender, identity, religion, nationality, ethnicity, appearance, physical state, professions, hobbies, beliefs, disability, social status, economic status, sexual orientation, birth order, age, well, just about anything.

The causes of prejudice are varied:  failure of logic, our filters, upbringing, education, stereotypes, jealousy, illusory correlation, expectations and distortions, etc.

I want to believe someday we will accept people for who they are.

I want to believe there will be a day when we will not see colour, or rank, or wealth, or facility, or size, or profession, or religion, we will see only individuals.

Now is the time to put aside who we think people are and see them as they are.

We can never be satisfied until that day is upon us.