But, We All have Red Blood!

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I love that we all are unique, and yet, we all have the same color blood - we are all part of one humanity - taking separate paths, nature blessed us with. How boring and unenlightening it would be if we were totally the same.

I realize some paths are still poisoned by prejudice, even after so much progress in the last quarter millennium. Prejudice is stupidity. The definition of prejudice is ‘a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.’

Taking a notion well expressed by Martin Luther King - You can’t know a person by the color of their skin, but only by the ‘content of their character’. He expressed his wish for reason, as part of the famous, I have a dream speech on August 28th, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. May we all know reason - my parents did - a gift of reason to me.

I was in about sixth grade and my big brother Richard, when he had the opportunity, came home from the seminary with fellow students, to be welcomed, often impromptu, with a loving mother’s meal.

Charlie Cokley, native to the Bahamas, was my favorite. Mother never commented about his blackness - of course it was obvious, and maybe my first black acquaintance. But you know, it was no different than noticing the color of hair, or eyes, height or weight - just a notice - no opinion - no judgement. If there was any judgement by me, it was admiration, that these men were going to be priests. I had them all on a pedestal.

It was about the same time, sixth grade, that I noticed the Red Head, Nancy, during summer league baseball. I hadn't seen many redheads either - but I noticed and I liked. I ran into her in college. She mentioned that she noticed me too - my dark suntanned muscles shimmering from sweating boy activities, I suspect. We never connected - I never got to know the content of her character.

I noticed Halle Berry too - Not her blackness, but her beauty - one of the mot beautiful, along with Elizabeth Taylor. But these are mind game attractions - I don’t know the content of their character.

I do know real beauty is more than skin deep, or any other physical feature! Reason Rules. And, I love Color.

Color