A series of images and sounds come to mind when I think about this marking period and its topic, "And Justice for All." Where the first two marking periods primarily stimulated the intellectual side of the mind, this one appealed more to all of the senses. There were the paintings we looked at, the poems, the choral readings. "Ruby. Bridges. Ruby. Bridges." That chant in particular seems to come to mind whenever I think of the topic. The way, in particular, that near the end of that "reading," the chant, which by that point had turned into more of an argument, seemed to "wrap" around me, hedge me in so to speak, due to the way the readers were all walking around the room, but making their way to the center. The way, that at that point, the poem seemed almost oppressive.

Another thing that stuck with me was something that Ruby said. One reason it sticks with me is that although I believe it to be one of the most important things she said, she only actually said it at the very end of her meeting, when the larger audience was no longer present. Throughout her speech in the auditorium she had hinted at it, showed that she believed it, said things similar to it, but never said it. What I remember was her telling us that "it isn't a color thing anymore." That the entire thing really had nothing to do with simply white or black, it was a people problem. I remember her saying that color was just an excuse, one way for one human to get on top of another. It seems to me that sometimes we lose sight of the entire purpose of civil rights and freedom. Too often we start thinking too much in terms of equality for one group of people, which defeats the purpose, as the meaning of equality is the same rights for all people. I am not saying in any way that we should forget that the civil rights movement was primarily the struggle for African-American rights, as that was extremely important, but I think when we start thinking of things in only those terms we forget that the true goal is equality for everyone.

One thing that comes to mind when I think of this is, looking back at history, after the emancipation of the slaves, many arguments broke out between ex-slaves and northern women who had been abolitionists. Both had decided it was time to push for their rights, and arguments broke out about whether women should get rights or the ex-slaves. It seems ironic they couldn't have just seen past the entire "women deserve rights more than blacks" arguments or vice versa, and just pushed for rights. Period. Obviously, they saw themselves as two separate peoples. They must have felt the differences between them were too great to simply push for rights and assume they applied to everyone. Of course, I am being idealistic here, but nonetheless, I think this shows the human tendency to think in such a manner even when you are helping others out.

For independent reading I read the Malcolm X autobiography, and I believe that, to a certain extent, he came to the same conclusion. It seems significant to me that for much of the book he had called the race problem the "white problem," but by the end, he referred to it as the "human problem." Similar to Ruby, he decided that it was not the "white man" that had to be fixed, but rather the society that turned people into that evil "white man." I remember Malcolm, near the end, saying something like the white man wasn't really a race, but a type of person. Even Martin Luther King near the end of his life seemed to be moving to this point of view, as can be seen when he spoke out against the war in Vietnam, not just for blacks, but for all those of the lower class who were dying in the conflict.

"Listen boys! I hate to confuse you again. But, to tell you the truth, my husband and I aren't really colored at all. We're white. We just thought we'd kid you for a little while - just as you said Negroes sometimes pass for white." As can be seen in this passage from Langston Hughes's Who's Passing for Who? - a story about each race passing as the other - race in the end is almost more a mental thing than a physical thing.

"I pray that disease and death will be forever with them…I pray that their friends shall betray them…I pray that their tongues shall forget how to speak in sweet words, and that it shall be paralyzed and that all about them will be desolation, pestilence and death." As this passage from Only Justice can Stop a Curse confirms, hate only breeds hate. And this is another reason I think it is important to view the problem as a human one, and not one of any particular race, as doing so can cause the opposite effect of that desired, the oppressed becoming the oppressors. I good contemporary example of this is in Kosovo. We (the United States, NATO, etc.) helped out the ethnic Albanians against the oppressing Serbs. Yet I think we started to think the Albanians were too good, and the Serbs were too bad, and now in that country the Serbs are fleeing in fear of Albanian oppression. Humans are human. They are all capable of good and evil.

"And it was then that I knew that healing, of all our wounds, is forgiveness, that permits a promise, of our return in the end." As Alice Walker points out to us, the way to peace, the way to equality, to healing is forgiveness. We must always forgive each other, but not as races, or sexes, or colors of people, but as humans, and that is my view.