Please Remember

When you stop seeing other human beings as people, it is easier to dismiss them.

If war has taught us anything, it has taught us this.

Or at least it should have.

I read a story today about how Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Corretta, went to India for a whole month.  There, a caste system still exists to this day in which there were a class of people known as "untouchables."  (They're called the Scheduled Caste these days, and despite laws that prevent discrimination based on caste, it still occurs.)  The story related how King was introduced to a class of young students at one point as "a fellow untouchable."  At first, it bothered him.  The label is one that I found myself even cringing at a bit when I thought about how I would feel if I were called such.  But when he realized that black people in America were this lowest class (as the untouchables were in India,) he understood why the untouchables of India embraced him as such.  And he realized that the struggles they both faced were, in fact, very similar.

As we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day here in the United States, I think it is important to confront our own biases about others--to look at how we judge people, and to realize that we are all human.

What we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to all.  So, when we actively hate or seek to harm others, we are hating and harming ourselves.

Today, ...please remember that.