"Why can't we all just get along?" A little over 30 years ago, Rodney King asked that plaintive

[Atticus]

question after being savagely beaten by five police officers. Rodney was black; the cops were white.

There are those who can quickly list many reasons why we can't get along and many who would call Rodney's question "naive" or "simplistic" or even "simple minded", but it was and is none of these: it is a straightforward but uncomfortable question.

I recall seeing a tee shirt worn by a young black man in Washington, D.C. during the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's "I have A Dream" speech. His shirt said: There is one race: the human race. Everything else is just culture". It struck me then as one of those obvious profound truths that we often ignore or forget as we struggle to sort through the hateful rhetoric with which we are inundated nearly every day.

Everyone is entitled to be different but, for all our superficial differences, we all want to be safe and happy and loved. We should each be permitted to pursue "life, liberty and happiness" in any way we see fit so long as we don't do harm to others.

Rodney's question is still remembered because we have yet to answer it.

"Why can't we all just get along?"

[Binkie The Clown]

1. You can only live as peacefully as your neighbor will allow you to. -- Chinese Proverb nt