Racial Harmony
My brother once commented that my mental catalog of patron saints might someday help me, he just couldn’t figure out how or when. On November 3, I figured out when. This is how.
Unless you’ve just emerged from Atlantis, you know that on November 4, we elected the first black president of the U.S. You may not know that the day before, the Catholic Church celebrated the feast day of St. Martin de Porres.
Still siding with my brother? Hear me out. St. Martin de Porres is the patron saint of racial harmony. On November 3, when the church celebrated this great saint, we didn’t know if Americans would, as a different Martin said, “judge not by the color of a man’s skin but by the content of his character.”
But on November 4, Americans chose content over color. And the prayer of two Martins – de Porres and Luther King, Jr. – was answered.
As I watched our new president take the stage in Grant Park, I wondered if St. Martin had performed a miracle. Or if Barack’s dear grandmother called the angels on her way to heaven, asking them to do their magic. Maybe it wasn’t a miracle after all, I thought, but the tireless efforts of civil rights activists, who sang the first notes of racial harmony. And then I wondered, why do we have such trouble treating every human with respect and dignity regardless of their skin color, sex, religion, age or mental state?
Despite the momentous milestone of Nov. 4, we so often judge by external factors. If Joe Biden, for instance, were the 44th president instead of the 44th VP, the media would have called him “the second Catholic president in our history.” If John McCain won the battle, his cabinet would have included the first female vice president. Bill Richardson might have been the first Hispanic president; Mitt Romney, the first Mormon. On and on. If we were truly living in harmony, I pondered, we wouldn’t need to call out our differences. The Italian violins or the Irish harp don’t make the performance. We sway to the melodies produced by all the instruments – in harmony.
St. Martin broke his own racial barrier, becoming the first dark-skinned man to be accepted into Lima’s Dominican monastery. In 1600. Thomas Jefferson said, “all men were created equal.” In 1776. Dr. King wrote from a Birmingham Jail, “we have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights.” In 1963. We elected a black president. In 2008.
Will it take another 300 years for each of us to recognize the beauty and dignity, divinity and worth within every person?
St. Martin de Porres let sick beggars sleep in his bed at the monastery, despite protests from his superiors. Our country lets its mentally ill sleep on the streets.
Martin Luther King was ashamed at a country that would not call his wife and mother, “Mrs.” Our country still shirks at the dignity of some women, especially the pregnant and poor.
We’ve declared our country colorblind. But Native Americans still live -- chained by alcoholism and poverty -- on reservations where our founders interned them in the name of freedom.
John Adams signed the Bill of Rights in 1791, declaring no law should prohibit the free exercise of religion. But if Barack really had been a Muslim, would he be president?
But then Obama took the stage and declared that America is a place where ALL things are possible.
And I thought about another great Chicagoan -- Dorothy Day -- who was imprisoned for being one of forty women in front of the White House protesting women's exclusion from the electorate. That was in 1917. Her imprisonment touched the hearts of that electorate and in 1920 women were granted the right to vote.
And I looked at Jesse Jackson crying tears of joy in the Chicago crowd, and I thought about the day he cried tears of rage as Dr. King fell on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. Jackson, and other civil rights activists, answered that fist with an open hand, using nonviolent resistance to change America. I sat next to a black man on the bus yesterday. We weren’t in the back.
And I read Maya Angelou’s reaction to Obama’s presidency and I remembered her words, the words of a black woman who rose past injustice and hatred to become one of America’s greatest writers. She said,
Unless you’ve just emerged from Atlantis, you know that on November 4, we elected the first black president of the U.S. You may not know that the day before, the Catholic Church celebrated the feast day of St. Martin de Porres.
Still siding with my brother? Hear me out. St. Martin de Porres is the patron saint of racial harmony. On November 3, when the church celebrated this great saint, we didn’t know if Americans would, as a different Martin said, “judge not by the color of a man’s skin but by the content of his character.”
But on November 4, Americans chose content over color. And the prayer of two Martins – de Porres and Luther King, Jr. – was answered.
As I watched our new president take the stage in Grant Park, I wondered if St. Martin had performed a miracle. Or if Barack’s dear grandmother called the angels on her way to heaven, asking them to do their magic. Maybe it wasn’t a miracle after all, I thought, but the tireless efforts of civil rights activists, who sang the first notes of racial harmony. And then I wondered, why do we have such trouble treating every human with respect and dignity regardless of their skin color, sex, religion, age or mental state?
Despite the momentous milestone of Nov. 4, we so often judge by external factors. If Joe Biden, for instance, were the 44th president instead of the 44th VP, the media would have called him “the second Catholic president in our history.” If John McCain won the battle, his cabinet would have included the first female vice president. Bill Richardson might have been the first Hispanic president; Mitt Romney, the first Mormon. On and on. If we were truly living in harmony, I pondered, we wouldn’t need to call out our differences. The Italian violins or the Irish harp don’t make the performance. We sway to the melodies produced by all the instruments – in harmony.
St. Martin broke his own racial barrier, becoming the first dark-skinned man to be accepted into Lima’s Dominican monastery. In 1600. Thomas Jefferson said, “all men were created equal.” In 1776. Dr. King wrote from a Birmingham Jail, “we have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights.” In 1963. We elected a black president. In 2008.
Will it take another 300 years for each of us to recognize the beauty and dignity, divinity and worth within every person?
St. Martin de Porres let sick beggars sleep in his bed at the monastery, despite protests from his superiors. Our country lets its mentally ill sleep on the streets.
Martin Luther King was ashamed at a country that would not call his wife and mother, “Mrs.” Our country still shirks at the dignity of some women, especially the pregnant and poor.
We’ve declared our country colorblind. But Native Americans still live -- chained by alcoholism and poverty -- on reservations where our founders interned them in the name of freedom.
John Adams signed the Bill of Rights in 1791, declaring no law should prohibit the free exercise of religion. But if Barack really had been a Muslim, would he be president?
But then Obama took the stage and declared that America is a place where ALL things are possible.
And I thought about another great Chicagoan -- Dorothy Day -- who was imprisoned for being one of forty women in front of the White House protesting women's exclusion from the electorate. That was in 1917. Her imprisonment touched the hearts of that electorate and in 1920 women were granted the right to vote.
And I looked at Jesse Jackson crying tears of joy in the Chicago crowd, and I thought about the day he cried tears of rage as Dr. King fell on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. Jackson, and other civil rights activists, answered that fist with an open hand, using nonviolent resistance to change America. I sat next to a black man on the bus yesterday. We weren’t in the back.
And I read Maya Angelou’s reaction to Obama’s presidency and I remembered her words, the words of a black woman who rose past injustice and hatred to become one of America’s greatest writers. She said,
“I may not be all I’m supposed to be, I may not be all I’m going to be. But thank God I’m not what I was.”We may not be a perfect country. We haven’t always lived up to our promise. But thank God. We’re not what we were.
Wonderful! Thanks God we're not who we were. In Portland we celebrated with ice cream flowing freely in the streets. And sparklers.
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