Today my heart wants to honor the life of Martin Luther King, but in the current climate of racial relations our society, my brain begs me not to.  I’m aware that I feel completely inept, unqualified and quite honestly nervous, about saying the correct thing.  I worry about coming across cliche or trite on a day like today.  It feels unsafe either way.  Silence is clearly wrong, but a white girl speaking up with the wrong words can bring backlash.  One thing I’ve learned over the years is that speaking up, when my voice is shaking, is often the most important time to speak.

So today I’m writing, when it would have been more “comfortable” to pass.

Reading Dr. King’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail, reminds me that same desire for self-preservation, and “absence of tension” by the good-willed white moderate was exactly what kept them silent.  It was also the most bewildering part …