sorry, glass still half empty

The song says, We shall overcome, we'll walk hand in hand, we shall all be free, we are not afraid, we are not alone, and we shall live in peace.

Maybe I've just had a long week, I'm a little tired, there's a lot going on, and I could use a break. Yeah, well, who couldn't. I won't recite the evidence of the individual and collective, local and national and global, political and social and spiritual not overcoming, not hand in hand, not free, and especially not in peace. It's that day every year at this time when I choke on the words and fail to articulate the reason. And the only way I can think of to appropriately celebrate it is to notice how much work there is to do.

Despite my psychic armor, Rev. Susan succeeded in penetrating my self-absorbed suburban existence yet another time, and it's worth it, of course, to be reminded of what is true about "us". The opening hymn was the Holly Near standard "(We Are) A Gentle Angry People" which demands answers to the follow-up questions "Why so angry?" and "Why be gentle?"

Let's be positive, let's be optimistic. Let's celebrate the official national holiday established by the president most responsible for dismantling the programs set up to address the poverty and racism leftover from slavery. Let's take a day off work and consign that struggle to the history books, because that was a problem in the fifties, and it was taken care of in the sixties, and it's time to move on.

The short answer is, if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem (zing goes the cliche-meter). To benignly ignore racism/sexism/homophobia and not get angry is to tacitly support the malignant status quo.