what will we have

 Checking all the boxes. It appears that is more important than having the correct answers. As I was listening to an interview with one of the lady astronauts involved with today's rocket launch that became obvious. I was encouraged by her response though. The reporter listed all the people involved with the program, pointing out how many women, women of color, men of color; other than the white guys; and asked her opinion on that. Her response was, we have so many of those people in the program, and have had for years now, that I don't think it is an issue. I did smile at that response and the reporter was left unsatisfied. It was quite obvious he was hoping for a different reaction. Pressing the topic, a bit further he still got no satisfaction. Good for her, whatever her name is.

 It highlighted the need to check all the boxes, however. What if there hadn't been any African American, Latinos, or females involved? The reporter did stress that with the apollo missions it was only white guys! That isn't the truth but that didn't matter to the reporter. There were in fact many minorities involved with the program, you just didn't see them on television much. The thing was only qualified people were involved with the program. The number of qualified minorities was a small number, that's why they are in the minority, and there was no active plan to seek them out, to check that box. Fact is, there wasn't even a box for that. In those days no one was asking how you "identified" yourself. Whatever you said was taken as fact, unless it was obvious that it wasn't. Yes, back in those days BS would be called! 

 Yesterday marked the 59th anniversary of Martin Luther Kings' dream speech. That took place in 1963. In that famous oration he spoke of character rather than color. It was his dream for his children. He was, of course, speaking metaphorically about all children of color. It's my thinking he would be greatly disappointed today. He was aware, he spoke of it, preached it, that it is the character of a person that makes that person, not the color of their skin. Today, the most important thing is to check that box with the proper "color" and consider the character of that person later. Today color is being used as an excuse for character! That is to say, color used as an exemption! 

 Thirteen per cent of the population are black people. If you listen to the news and their pundits, you would think that number to be significantly higher. If you eliminated everyone else the entire population of America would be about forty million people. There are one hundred and ninety eight nations in the world with populations smaller than that number. In 2020 seventy four per cent of the population of America identified themselves as white. The number has declined since with fewer identifying as white only. That's important to understand. It has become socially and politically expedient to identify yourself in that manner. In short, not good to simply say, I'm white! It is always to your advantage however to declare some connection to another race/minority or "marginalized" group. As a result, we had to add boxes to the applications. It's a scramble to be the first! The character isn't important, the importance lies in being the first. 

  White people are the majority. That is just a statistical fact. We have been in America since its' inception as America. Yes, yes, when white people first arrived there were the natives, and their numbers were more. We called them Indians, savages, and red men. Thing is the white people, Europeans is a better definition of those peoples, continued to migrate, seek refuge, and have dreams of a new land. They just kept on coming. The Dutch (other europeans) stopped by in 1619 and sold slaves to these Europeans. They had purchased them from African traders by the way. Nothing unusual about that, Europeans had been holding slaves, being taken as slaves, and dealing with all of that for centuries. There were some blacks here before that, but not a great number. Africans just weren't world explorers for whatever reason.

  Simply put, white people made America. They had a dream as well. If you read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights their ideals (dreams) weren't all that different than what Dr, King was speaking about. All men are created equal. John Adams explained it succinctly when he said our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious man. It's true though that morality and religion are often set aside in favor of profit and progress. By whatever means necessary is often a term used to justify that. We know it is wrong, but it is necessary, this time anyway. America abolished the practice of slavery altogether in just eighty nine years as a nation. It was still being practiced actively in many other nations across the globe. It still is in some places. But a box was checked, a box of character. More followed, the equal rights act of 1964 is an example of that. Today we keep adding boxes, gender identity issues, sexual identity and that sort of thing. 

 What boxes define a person's character? Moral and religious values are those boxes. Morality is defined by the society in which you live, it is different in different cultures. Religion is what? Religion is a doctrine written by men. This is how you should live and interact with others. The practice of that religion (doctrine) is different in every culture as well. The United States of America has no official religion. You aren't supposed to say that, that we were formed on Christian principles of morality. Don't check that box!

  One thing is certain, it has proven to be far more difficult to walk the walk, than to talk the talk. That began with those founding documents. The idealism in those words inspire us all. And I mean all, regardless of your skin tone. It is very difficult to stay true to our moral and religious values. As true for a nation as it is for the individual. Just going to church doesn't make you religious and endorsing immoral behaviors certainly doesn't make you a moral person. Not even when I say my morality has to allow you to be immoral, that's my morality. That is just checking the box! I satisfied someone else, not myself. What will we have when every box is checked?