Beginning with the Civil Rights Movement and right on through second-wave feminism, passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage, I have witnessed, and supported, many changes for the better in this country.
Yes, there have been setbacks and disappointments. Still, I have had reason to hope that these words from Martin Luther King, Jr. were true: The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
For a long time, I have had an image of people of goodwill hanging from the arc, lending their weight to its bending. Sometimes it has felt as if the arc were straightening, bending away from justice, but always I have believed that the power of those working for justice would continue to bend the arc, inch-by-inch, toward justice and fairness.
Now, it seems that people of ill will are deploying a bomb (paid for by the richest man in the world) to blow up the arc, sending flying those of us who have been hanging on.
To be honest, at this stage of my life, the weight I can lend to the building and the bending is not what it once was, but I am willing to give it my very best.
If only someone can tell me where to start.
