All God's Children

"I have a dream that one day...little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers."

If you do a Google search today, you will see a Google Doodle of four children jumping rope together. It's a sweet image evoking the words King spoke that glorious day in D.C. One child is a white boy, one girl Asian, and two girls are black. It really is a lovely homage, and I thank the artist for his thoughtfulness.

The image strikes a chord with me because it's a scene I lived on the playground in grade school. I loved jumping rope with my friends. Nicole Navarra was a Filipino girl, and we were pros at twirling the rope. Nikita Jennings and Kelly Myricks often jumped the rope we were twirling, and they were black. Of course, there were other children too. But the Google Doodle depicts a scene that I actually hold in memory, and it hits home. King's dream came true in my life and may be witnessed in playground scenes all across America.

It gets me thinking about the children who are not present, not part of the scene. One can trace the allusion from another text of King's speech: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." That quote from the Declaration continues, "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The Right to Life movement has as much obligation to hold this nation accountable to its creed as civil rights leaders did in decades past. Our nation must come to recognise the many children who will not live long enough to jump rope on the playground. We must acknowledge the many children being judged by the color of their skin as unworthy to live.

Most of these children are Black. These children are still being sold like chattel. These childrens' lives are being cut short for horrifying purposes: children are being dismembered, liquified, and their bodies mutilated for use by the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Fr.Euteneuer at Spirit&Life blog gives us something to pray and fast for when he tells about the many children who are not part of the American Dream.

They are part of the American Nightmare. Let us rise up on their behalf today and every day until Freedom truly rings for all God's children~