Saying Something
5 years ago , I wrote a "Minute for Mission" on domestic violence. As I've become aware, five years is too long to wait. When I was in high school, we took a career-oriented field trip of sorts to a few local businesses. Nearly all my classmates were white, and they were almost all upper middle class, or just plain rich. The bus driver, who was black and, at best, lower middle class, was late picking us up after one stop. One of my classmates made a joke, wondering if the driver were trying to sell the bus's hubcaps. I don't think anyone outright laughed, but some people giggled, and even people like me who thought that the joke sounded wrong didn't say anything. Except Mr. Rushing, one of our teachers. "That was racist, and there's no place for that here," he said. Mr. Rushing didn't end racism, but he stopped the giggling, and he did make a difference. And, in the sense that I've think of his courage as inspirational, he