My parents were high school students when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, Tenn., in April 1968. When I was born some 11 years later, the world had already changed a great deal, to say nothing of the evolution in my own lifetime.
And while guessing what the future may hold is pure folly, there's something to be said for looking simultaneously forward and backward — to wonder what tomorrow may bring but also to be informed by our collective past.
"Saturday Night Live" tackled the subject in its most recent episode, airing a sketch set in 2112. In the bit set at a theater, actors were presenting a play set in 2012 and the futuristic audience was laughing uproariously at the conventions of "today" — driving an hour to work, logging on to the Internet to send an email, wearing a business suit, etc. Also in 2012, wolverines had not yet been domesticated and singer Taylor Swift had not yet assassinated anyone.
While not as humorous as the writers intended, the bit did manage to poke fun at the idea of taking things for granted and also the notion that what we now consider the height of technological innovation may one day be as stale as the VCR or in-car cassette deck. After all, in 1973, O.J. Simpson was just the world's greatest running back and no one had ever heard of a Goldendoodle.
Looking to the past — and especially in light of Monday's observance of King's birthday — can be far more illuminating. While looking up something entirely different Sunday, I came upon a link to a March 2008 newspaper essay I'd set aside for posterity.
Chicago Tribune reporter Patrick Reardon wrote the piece just days after U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, on the presidential campaign trail, spoke in Philadelphia on the issue of race relations in modern America. What struck me about Reardon's writing was not just his take on race, and specifically a beloved book from his childhood he could not in good conscience pass on to his own children, but the larger concept of moral blindness. He wrote:
Continue reading "Looking forward to appreciate past, present."
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