Looking to the future

A day will come when we don’t need to embrace people’s differences because we won’t consider them important. We will accommodate the needs of people who live with disabilities without resentment and when confronted with a heavy accent we will listen more closely without grimacing.

A day will come when women will be able to walk down the street without fearing the intent of every male they happen across or worse, who lies in wait. And men of good will won’t have to feel guilty by association.

A day will come when women and minorities in positions of leadership and authority will be unremarkable.

A day will come when we won’t take the time to worry about the gender or sexual orientation of loving couples because we will prefer to spend our time and attention making sure that the people in our own lives feel loved.

A day will come when censorship will be nonexistent because to try to censor will be universally viewed as distasteful but also because most writers and speakers and painters and, and, and… will be respectful so that censorship is unnecessary.

A day will come when bigotry in any form will be so universally censured that the bigots will recede into the dark places from whence they were excreted.

A day will come when diversity won’t have to be promoted because at long last we will realize that sameness promotes inbreeding which is both unhealthful and boring.

A day will come when every child will be able to rely upon every adult of good will for protection and succor and those who would hurt, or abuse, or neglect children will be seen and treated as the arch criminals they are. And people will always and in every case intervene. Which means…

A day will come when no one earns the hateful sobriquet ‘bystander.’

A day will come when I won’t have to write any of this in future tense.

That day is not yet come.

But it will. Not in my lifetime and not in yours.

But trust me, the day will come. And my job today is to live my life in such a way that I help us move toward that day rather than away from it. I haven’t always been good at this but I will continue to try harder.  Because if I do, if we all do, then for our grandchildren or theirs,

A day will come.