I generally try to stay off the political soap-box with front page stuff; too much potential for fallout.  :)

 However, today was the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior's birthday in the U.S.

To a large portion of our population, today was more than the celebration of a person's birthday.  It was a celebration of the notion that the words in our constitution, that "all men are created equal", should apply to EVERYONE.  It shouldn't matter what your race, sex, or creed are when you go apply for a job, go vote, or use the bathroom.  We should be equals before the law, and before each other.

These are high-sounding words; powerful ideals that have motivated people throughout history to lay down their lives so that their progeny might have the right to live their lives as they choose.  In practice, though, we often fall far short of the things we say we believe.  I like to believe that we have gained ground over where we were in the 1960s.  However, the fact that we still have debates about what constitutes 'good race relations' shows that we still have a long way to go.  The fact that I work in a company in which nearly 85% of all the employees are female, yet ALL of senior management is male shows that we still have a long way to go.

Why, almost 50 years later, do we still have to deal with this issue?  I don't have a good answer for that.  But one thing I do know; if we will all work, honestly, to get rid of the notion that people should be treated differently because of their skin color, their race, their sex, or any of the other trivial reasons we come up with to separate people into groups for the purpose of dehumanizing them, we won't have to still be dealing with this issue 50 years from now.

Think about it.

Then act on it.