The day Dr. King was assassinated, 2008.

I've been thinking about the challenges of talking about race in our country. As someone who believes that all human beings are suffering in one way or another, how to honor the specific wound caused by racism? 

I don't know how else to speak to it other than to say that I love people. The ones hurting today, the ones hurting tomorrow. My hope is that each person can find the means to release their anguish and find hope in the moment, and the will to believe that healing is within their grasp. 

Samantha Power, the human rights strategist who stepped down from the Obama campaign after making unfortunate remarks about HIllary Clinton, spoke to the cruelty of this time, pointing to an era in which a sobbing child begs a man wielding a machete not to kill him by saying, "I swear, I will never be Tsutsi again."

At times it seems healing is impossible. That to try to heal is to embark upon a journey of futility. But that is the time to remember all of those who suffered before and were not turned back by feelings of doubt. We can remember those who met the blade and even then believed that another could have a change of heart. 

This belief is stolen from us in the midst of the carnage. But it is exactly what we have to hold on to when the odds appear to be overwhelming, and the anger and disregard for humanity seem to have an almost supernatural power.

If we can continue to touch the place in ourselves that is always there, buried beneath the rubble of hurts, ideas, and misconceptions, our species will thrive. If not, we will continue to cause unnecessary suffering wherever we go.

Today, forty years later, is a good day to remember. A good day to show our children how to move from the spring of hope rather than the confusion of fear.