Thank You. Plural

It's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Or at least the day our government chooses to officially recognize him and his work.

I think of Dr. King as being a sort of synecdoche of what we should be honoring, one of many people who worked hard to change law and practices in the US.

I sometimes wonder if I'd been an adult in those days, would I have had the integrity to work for change. I doubt it, alas.

Growing up on the west coast, I didn't hear a lot of discussion about the civil rights movement in my family. The racism in my family was there, but not in the ways it's visible in photos from the south. Instead, I was taught to respect everyone, but. And that "but" meant that things weren't really considered equal. There's a lot in that little word.

But I know now that there were people in our community working hard for change there, too. And I thank them.

And there are people now who are working hard for change. And I thank them.

I work a little for change, but not as hard as I should. I should work harder. Racism is in the air we breathe, but that's not an excuse to work against it.

Today's a reminder for me. Maybe for you, too.