"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths- that all of us are created equal- is the star that guides us still...just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth."
-President Barack Obama, 1/21/12
The King's great proclamation still rings, loud and clear. It was a proclamation that said we are all created equal, no matter our appearance. It was a proclamation that said we all had rights to freedom and liberty. It was a proclamation that said the oppressed will no longer be oppressed, that justice and righteousness will prevail, that we are all brothers and sisters, and that out of many, we are one. It still rings today.
I am a volunteer at the Field Museum of Natural History, and I work in the museum's education department, primarily with young children. Today, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.'s message and legacy, we did activities where we showed children different artifacts, like shoes or tools from around the world, and had them see that many things are different, many cultures are different- but no one artifact or one region or one culture is greater than another. It was a message that said, "we are all different, but difference is okay- difference doesn't mean conflict."
And I try to live that way in life, too. Unlike some people, I don't try to ignore race, but I try to embrace it as any other aspect of personality. Race in our society has become taboo, where people try to ignore it and pretend that everyone's the same, for harmony's sake. But I believe that race is a part of people, that we are all shaped by our cultures, and it's not something to be ignored, but embraced. We are all different, and differences shouldn't be ignored, but they should be embraced.
On the other hand, some people see differences as hostile, and see people who are different from them as people who should be blocked out of their lives. They see differences in humanity and see, in them, a lack of humanity. They oppress and try to rid the world of people who are different from them, and try to make a homogeneous population with people who they see as true.
But here's the thing- we're not that different. Of course we have different races and cultures, and we have different interests and beliefs, we may live differently or eat differently or speak differently. But humans have something distinct that makes them human (and it's not opposable thumbs or walking upright). It's that we all want to have freedom and liberty, we want to live in a just world, and we want to be treated equally. We all have hopes and dreams, we all have motives and goals, and we all want to have a fair journey to attain them. That's something all of us have in common.
The small differences we have should be embraced as individuality and richness among our population. The differences shouldn't be ignored as parts of people that don't matter and they shouldn't be taken to mean war among people. We are shaped by our differences, we are shaped by our race, and we are individual because of it.
And that's what I think Dr. King stood for. Being different isn't bad, it's good. We should accept these differences and learn about each other, and we shouldn't judge people because of them. We humans, though different, are created equal, and this equality and freedom are gifts that we are meant to share as one.
