I remember being at a Martin Luther King Day celebration decades ago when many well-meaning people, mostly whites who wanted to make a statement against racism, wore T-shirts bearing the words: “I am color blind.”  The keynote speaker, Alvin Brooks, challenged the audience to not be color-blind but, rather, to be color-sensitive, to not only see skin color but to celebrate it, to know its history of slavery or privilege or persecution and the ways in which we are overcoming the stigmas that separated us in the past.

When Dr. King expressed his dream to America on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC in 1963, he dreamt that one day his four little children would live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  Because of him and those who keep his dream alive we are obtaining his hopes.  Racism is dying—at least compared to the horrendous racism that he endured.  Most young people today think of race, religion, creed, culture, and color not as features of division but as important aspects that unite us.  It’s not unlike Saint Paul’s image of the many parts that make the one body of Christ; he proclaimed that we need one another’s diversity to make a better total entity just as diverse body parts make us whole.  To me, it’s also not unlike NFL teams that celebrate diversity in their brotherhood.

We’ve come a long way since 1963.  It was an amazing day when Barak Obama became president and another when Kamala Harris became vice president. It is beautiful to see the first lady who is Slovenian and the second lady who is Indian.  But we’ve gotten off track at times.  In recent years DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) surfaced through other well-meaning people to offer principles and programs that make leadership practices more inclusive but, like the T-shirts, it didn’t diminish racism—in most cases, it did the opposite by elevating people not because of the content of their character but because of the color of their skin. We are imperfect and we will suffer periodic setbacks on our road forward.  As a priest I continue to remind us that we work toward it on earth in hope of experiencing it in heaven.

I’ll conclude with Arnold Watts’ poem, The Beautiful Color of Love.  It encourages us to see color and reverence color, to celebrate it in this world and anticipate it for the world ahead.

“What color is God?”

Asked the child with skin so fair.

“Is he white like me,

Does He have light hair?”

“Is God dark like me?”

Asked the child with skin of golden hue.

“Has he hair that’s dark and curly

Are his eyes brown or blue?”

“I think God is red like me,”

The Indian boy is heard to say.

“He wears a crown of feathers

And turns our nights into day.”

Each one of us knows that God is there,

In all the colors above;

But be sure of this, the one color he is,

Is the beautiful color of love.

So, when your soul goes to heaven,

When your life comes to its end

He will be waiting, and His hand

to you will He extend.

There will be no colors in heaven,

Everyone will be the same.

You will only be judged by your earthly deeds,

Not your color or your name.

So, when your time comes,

And you see God in his heaven above,

Then you will see the only color that counts,

It is the beautiful color of love.