Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Wow.  I saw "I Am Not Your Negro" yesterday afternoon with a friend and it is so timely and elucidating that I wish everyone in America could see it.  I saw James Baldwin twice at readings, and also saw Malcolm X three or four times at Berkeley and Martin Luther King twice at marches.  I never saw Meager Evers, as he was killed when I was seventeen.  I was living out of the country when Malcolm X and King were killed, but remember vividly the stunning grief when they died.  Baldwin had the gift of saying the truth, unvarnished, but complicated.  He used himself as an example and was able to articulate his own fear and sense of alienation beautifully, and in a way that resonates with me and I believe most people.  It's a documentary that's hard to watch, because the racism and apathy by a lot of people has not changed.  This current flareup is the sign of a deep, dark past and the danger of our future.  But somebody dared say it, and his words have outlived him and speak to us now.  What a blessing.