Minorities
I saw a young mother in the airport restroom the other day, carrying her baby. She was short and had the physical characteristics of a woman of Central American, not latin, descent. The look on her face and the way she moved through the crowded area struck me. There were women of caucasian descent, and women of African descent there in line, but as this lady moved through, I felt sad. The thought had come to me that here is a woman of an unnoticed “minority”, and she looked so very alone and uncomfortable.
In our country, the U.S.A., we think of “minorities” generally in terms of “blacks” and “hispanics”. As a “white, middle-aged, woman”, if I were to own a company, I would be included in the category “Minorities”. In our nation, it appears to me that we need to skip the categorization and just be Americans, a people of integrity, neighborliness, and good manners. If we only followed the “Golden Rule” of “Do to others as you would like them to do to you,” or “Love your neighbor as yourself,” many of our nation’s problems would cease. Perhaps then we would truly be a nation living up to our “welcome mat” that says
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
On a Plaque on the Statue of Liberty
For the complete poem see here
Nancy Ivy,
October 10, 2005