Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I was reading about the Tulsa race "riots" of 1921, which I had not known about before, and remembered John Singleton's film "Rosewood", which I saw with my friend a few years ago.  I was ignorant of that history as well at the time.  We do not know what we need to know.  The fact that students in our country are woefully unprepared for adult citizenship is partially because history, relevant history, is not conveyed to them.  Tensions we see now have precedents.  We bury our heads in the sand rather than addressing the elephant in the room.  When I think back on the movement against apartied in South Africa, I feel ashamed, because we should have also been boycotting all the institutions in this country which condoned or looked the other way while people of color were being treated unfairly.  Yes, I marched and protested over black power issues back in the day, but not nearly enough.  The history of our country is full of racism, against Native Americans, Chinese, Japanese and Black, among others.  We need to talk about this history and make reparations and then have reconciliation commissions, and cease tolerating bigotry and hate.  Black lives matter, and we need to speak up, defend them and act like they do matter, deeply and profoundly.