Some Thoughts On Recent Headlines

I think everybody needs a hug today. Those people who rioted in Ferguson are not typical, nor are the police whose us vs them mindset started this whole catastrophe, which was exacerbated by the media pandering to the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality. This whole business is just sad, sad, sad. Glad Dr. King isn't here to see it. This would disappoint him so.
It makes me that much more grateful for local police who reach for their can of mace or their baton before they reach for their gun, unless they are certain the person facing them is armed. (I've seen them at work, I know. The gun is the last resort with our guys. )
The idiots who seemingly delighted in an excuse to destroy almost drowned out the touching and far wiser plea of the Brown family. Violence and hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that, as Dr. King said. The Brown family is pleading for people to find ways to effect CONSTRUCTIVE change. 
 So sad that we have not traveled further from the days of my early childhood, when people of color finally stood up and said with quiet determination "No more." No more will our young men be hung on trees like grotesque ornaments for no good reason other than that they happened to be the wrong color in the wrong place at the wrong time. No more will we allow ourselves to be shoved to the "back of the bus", or excluded from common facilities,or denied rights that are deemed fundamental to all humans.

We have made some            progress, yes, but there is still SO far to go. We need to learn to see each other as humans first, inconsequential differences of exterior appearance becoming just that. 
It is not the guilt of only one group. We ALL need to stop deciding someone hates us, or we hate them, based solely on appearance. Not every dark face belongs to a hoodlum. Not every light face belongs to a racist who seeks to harm those who are different.
 Again and again we ignore the words of all those leaders we purport to follow. From Jesus to Gandhi to Dr. King, we refuse to love our neighbor as ourselves, to do right even when others do wrong, in fact, most sadly, we don't love ourselves. I think that is the true basis for most of the trouble in this world.

  
For the sake of all of us, I hope we learn.