I basically visualize myself as a football player, running down the field, helmet on, straight-arm ready to push people way, completely intent on plowing forward.

I’m one of those inward people that, when something upsets me, I dig a whole somewhere inside me and bury it. Something else comes along, I’ll bury that just to the other side. This routine continues until one day when I hit a max amount of things being buried and I erupt. Not violently, but swiftly. By the time I hit that point, I’ve wrestled in my mind what I’m going to do about each of the issues and act. That’s me.

As you’re quite aware, we’ve got a whole lot to fix in our world and it seems to be continually piling up. Of course, individually, we can’t fix everything, but we need to try to do that and then, what doesn’t get fixed can be put on a list for tomorrow.

This past week, I think the culmination of the endless bickering about the virus, the politics, the racial stripe, the senseless killings of people–all topics that I’m processing–just hit me. I was watching the evening news on ABC with David Muir, when he did a story about a kid who raised money to buy diapers and baby food for moms who were down on their luck. It was his own project and he had made magic happen for some moms, one of whom raved about what a great thing he was doing.

He was selfless. Probably 12 or so. And black.

That’s when my eyes started misting. It just made me incredibly sad that are perhaps millions of people out there, right now, unaware of what he was doing with his life, who would see him and immediately dislike him. Or distrust him. Or assume the worst. And judge him. And, if walking down the street and seeing him approaching, they would cross the street to avoid him, just to “play it safe.”

That is incredibly sad.

Hats off to those protestors who are out there, calling for racial injustice to end. The ones who are rioting and starting fires are not the same people. They are extremes on both sides of the political spectrum who have learned that chaos helps them and distracts from the important issues.

I don’t know what it will take to get to “the mountain top” that Dr. King talked about half a century ago. But I do know it will take change, both in our laws and in our values.

While protesting is a right protected by our constitution, I do think a nice addendum would be to require people to register to vote if they want to protest. Because that’s how real change occurs. When we put the right people in position to continue evolving our country. To strive to the words of freedom that were in the original design, but have somehow been assigned to only some of us.

We have a chance to do some voting in the near future. Make sure your precious right is used to help me this an even better country, now and in the future.

It would be a wonderful way to reward at least one young man for helping out so many new moms.

Tim Hunter