A dream coming true

“I have a dream…” Martin Luther King Jr.

I’ll never forget the first time that my son Micah recognized that I was a different color than him. He was about 5 years old. We were sitting on the couch cuddled together with our arms all tangled up. His beautiful brown arm and my very white arm looking like a half baked pretzel. He was just staring at our arms, and I could tell he was thinking really hard. Finally he looked up at me with complete sincerity, and with sympathy said; “Dad…you’re REALLY white”. He felt sorry for me. It was both a very funny moment and a beautiful one. He was completely innocent, untouched by any kind of prejudice. We have obviously had many great discussions since then. Being a multi-racial family affords natural opportunities all the time.

Last week I came home from my office to find Micah sitting on the floor looking through one of our photo books on the life of Martin Luther King Jr. The book was sitting on his lap open to the photos of the Birmingham riots. He sat staring at the infamous photo of people being blasted with fire hoses and attacked by police dogs because of the color of their skin. When I walked in, Micah looked up at me with the most heartbreaking, quizzical look of confusion. His eyes pleading for an answer…”Why?” His look just about brought me to my knees.

How do you explain hatred, violence and racism to a child, when it doesn’t make any sense to begin with? Just try explaining it, and you’ll find out how the explanations begin to sound as lame and insane as the actual acts and attitudes you’re attempting to unravel.

Fortunately, the last few days have taught us more than all of my feeble attempts with words of wisdom. On Monday (Martin Luther King Jr. day) we celebrated a man and his audacity to dream. And Tuesday we saw his dream inch another step closer to coming true. We sat watching the inauguration, with our arms around our kids, tears coming down our faces, and hearts about to burst at the thought that anything is possible. If only Dr. King could have seen this day. As of this week, there will be black children playing on the front lawn of the White House. And they're not just visiting. They LIVE there! We held our kids a little tighter when Elizabeth Alexander read the following lines from her poem;

“What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national.

Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.”

No doubt that these are extreme times. What we desperately need are extremists. Not right wing or left wing extremists. Not religious or political extremists. But the kind of extremist that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote about from that small jail cell in Birmingham;

“So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love?” (MLK)

I hope we choose love. For my children, and their future children’s sake.

-Rob