In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

I watched Ripple of Hope last night, a documentary on Bobby Kennedy's reaction to Dr. King's assassination. The speech he gives, to an impassioned and enraged crowd on the night of the assassination, sends them peacefully home. Kennedy, for the first time in five years, brings up Jack's assassination and speaks of the loss he too has experienced at the hands of a white man. His point in doing so is to elucidate the matter at hand: that hatred and prejudice are indiscriminately present in all societies, that one act of bloodshed is not made right by retaliation. Retaliation, as made evident throughout history, serves only to propagate the "mindless menace of violence." Kennedy's speech erased the lines between color that night and prompted the country to move toward forgiveness and compassion toward men regardless of the color of their skin.