Monday, January 18, 2010

How Do You Talk About Martin Luther King Jr. AND The Golden Globes? You Just Do.

These topics can't really be combined but what the hell. It's my blog.

SO, last night I'm watching the Golden Globes, mesmerised of course by the dresses and the shoes and the hair. I'm both weepy by some of the speeches, and alternately horrified. Hello, Chloe Sevigny? Others are talking about Haiti or being grateful, and she's all pissed off that the guy walking her up the stairs had the GALL to step on and hence rip, her most probably free dress. Man, she may have to actually PAY for it now!!! Geeze. Self-possessed much? I loved Sandra Bullock's speech, Mo'nique's and of course my twin, Meryl Streep. I don't care what anybody says, either. I still find Drew Barrymore to be the sweetest thing ever. What the heck happened to Felicity Huffman, though? She couldn't get a sentence out to save her life.

Amid all of this glitz and excess, it was easy to push the soul wrenching images of the destruction and loss of life in Haiti out of my mind. Really, that's the point of movies and television and literature anyways. It can transport us to another world of entertainment and glamour. I've been crying silent tears seeing children searching for parents, individuals dying because they don't have access to medical care, for many days now. I've listened to people say that maybe this is the "cleansing" that Port-au-Prince needed and make sick references to the quality of life there "anyways." Really? I don't care who you are, or where you live-poverty or affluence, war or peace. The human race still contains mothers and children. Mothers everywhere, I believe, want better for their children. They want to rise above their circumstance, they want their children to be healthy and happy. Those of us capable of sitting in our glass houses and mocking that tragedy truly need to shake our heads and take a look in the mirror.

This brings me to Martin Luther King Jr. day today. Though we've seemingly come a long way, we have so much further still to travel. Martin Luther King Jr. was a pioneer and strong voice in the battle for equality and freedoms. I hope we continue to fight ignorance and fear, and realize that inequality and prejudice surround us daily, still, in our modern world. I hope strong voices continue to rise for all of those held down by race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. Someday, some way, maybe we'll finally get to a place where we can all "come together" and truly extend our hands and our hearts for our fellow man.

You may say I'm a dreamer.........but I'm not the only one.

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