Tools for Intentional Living – Dr. J. Nickens

Really???               

Then surely you are colorblind!

But that may not be the “good thing” you think it is.

When you declare that you don’t “see” color what you may be saying is that your own color – your race and culture – are at the center of the society and that you are willing to “not see” that others are different and that they may not enjoy all of the same invisible privilege you have – the privilege you also don’t see. 

Try instead to open your eyes and open your heart to see the wonderous diversity of your  family, friends, neighbors and co-workers.  Try to see that we all have strengths and frailties, and some of these are given to us by our birth status – being born of a certain gender, ethnicity, physical capability or nationality.  How different to be born and living in the slums of Haiti than to be born and living in a cosmopolitan city in the USA.

Learn to be comfortable with difference, and enrich your life with a full palette of color and culture, recognition, and understanding.  Work at it everyday in both small and large ways.  

As Bob Marley said, while he dedicated his life to inoculating people against hate through the use of love and music: “The people who are trying to make the world worse do not take a day off.  Why should I?”  

I was at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. 

I saw and listened, and I remember every moment.

Keep the dream alive.  Happy Birthday Dr. King.