A Social Commentary

I know that since the creation of the blog E and I have used it primarily to update everyone on the progress of the pregnancy and on Baby White, but over the past few days I was struck by something that had a significant effect on me.

Last night E and I went to our church for Wednesday Night Worship to get a little extra blessing for Baby White. Our Pastor had a very thought-provoking sermon which got me thinking about E and our entire baby experience.

The sermon reminded us that April 4th marked the 39th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. As we all know, Dr. King stood for racial equality, civil rights and justice for all Americans. If one of us is enslaved then we all are. I think that if there's one speech that Dr. King is most remembered for it's the "I Have A Dream" speech that he delivered in Washington, DC in 1963. Right now I'm struck by the following lines from the speech...

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

While I can't say that Dr. King's dreams have been fully realized, I can say that E and my relationship and our Baby White experience clearly shows that progress has been made. If you will, please indulge me for a minute.

Why do people fall in love? Why do some relationships work out and some don't? More importantly why do people decide to get married and raise families? These are precisely the kinds of questions that I've been asking myself over the past few days and months. Two more different people than E and I could probably not be found, but believe it or not race has very little to do it. What makes E and I similar is our beliefs, upbringing and common socio-economic backgrounds. Our parents both instilled us with good moral values and a strong work ethic. They emphasized the importance of education and the love of God. E and I have never had to battle the issue of race and the respect and love we have for one another runs very, very deep.

So why all of the editorial comment? Well I realized something the other day. When I graduated from college and moved back home one of the very first new friends that I made was with a man named Jim. He was an African-American doctor doing his residency at the University of Virginia. Jim was the first African-American doctor that I had ever met. Even though we were roughly the same age I looked at him with awe. What progress I thought.

What struck me the other day was that during our entire visits to the hospital every one of our doctors has been African-American. E's Primary Care doctor. Both of our OB/GYNs. Our anesthesiologist. Even the OB who stepped in when our regular doctor was out was African-American. All of this goes without mentioning that over half of them were women.

What's amazing about our whole experience is that never once did E or I feel in awe or surprised that our caregivers were African-American. It just felt good to have top notch medical professionals taking care of E and Baby White.

And that's what I call progress.