Not Easy Being Green

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day...

after a sermon in church yesterday
about white privilege, injustice
and the miles we have yet to go...

after watching a bit of Oprah
(while sitting with a hospice patient
who was parked in the middle
of the nursing home TV room)
and the history Oprah shared
of a biracial couple
who married within my lifetime
and who were taken from their bed,
from their home,
and put in jail
(after first having to leave their home state
to marry, seeing as it was illegal
in their state and many others at the time
for them to tie the knot)....
did I mention this was within my lifetime?....

after thinking all day
about my own experiences
of people waltzing right over
my own wounds
and feelings of exclusion
with their own ignorance,
blindness
and naivete,
(and occasionally
their intentional
coldblooded meanness)...

after remembering
what it was like
to go to public schools
in racially diverse
cities in the south
only a few years
after desegregation,
and remembering how TENSE
it was, how DIVIDED it was,
how ALIENATED it was....

after remembering
how often across my life
I have trampled
on the traditions,
differences,
opinions
and personhood of others
(and that's just the times
I was aware)....

I find myself perplexed.

Human relationships
are so very complicated.

Respect is hard to find
and harder to give.