Jordan.Montag.co

Home on a “snow-day.” When these happen AFTER highschool/college, it usually means cracking the lap-top and catching up on work. I’ll do some of that and a little writing as well.

Today’s post was originally going to be about “Ego” and a section I underlined in a book I am reading on the topic. Instead, I think a short post about MLK would be more appropriate.

Yesterday, our news-feeds were chock-full of inspiring quotes about hate, love, justice, and freedom. As I reflect, one of the ones that sticks with me most was about forward progress.

If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.

It’s been more than 50 years since MLK’s march on Washington and sometimes it can feel that we still have fifty years to go to achieve equality. It often feels like two steps forward, one step back, and many public discourses too quickly erode to race-baiting or rote categorization into racial buckets. We have to ignore those that can’t be educated, educate those that can, and learn from those who know.

I grew up in white, rural East Texas. I might have known 3 black people before I turned 18. 12 years later, I know some of those biases still exist in me. It’s my responsibility to identify where those biases exist INSIDE ME, and seek to understand how to erode them internally. It’s my prayer that I teach my son to acknowledge these biases OUTSIDE HIMSELF and to WORK to erode them externally.

Progress is always good. We, especially those of us of means (or *gasp* privilege), must always seek to find it, for the sake of those without. Progress. Always progress.