Throughout the course of recorded human history, the ethnic, racial and socioeconomic groups that were not at the table of decision making, ended up being at best left out and at the worst got exploited and abused and in some cases got annihilated in ethnic cleansing pogroms.

We sometimes have this ambivalent attitude towards getting involved in the political landscape and we are more or less stay well content in being this model citizenry of well-behaved hard working people. The time has come for us to realize that this attitude only works for so long.

As a society we tend to have short memories, especially of the potential of evil that human beings are inherently capable of - It has been only 70 years since Auschwitz, where they tried to annihilate an entire community of people because of their religion. Less than 60 years ago, in this City of Atlanta, and across the South, a black man could not drink water from the same water fountain as a White man. So to ignore the potential of all that evil to come back with renewed fury is to ignore the not too distant history. Being complacent and taking our freedoms for granted is a sure fire way to lose them fast.

           “ONLY THING NECESSARY FOR TRIUMPH OF EVIL IS TO GOOD MEN DO NOTHING”                                                                                                            attributed to Edmund Burke.

Do not expect social injustices to magically disappear over time because God and people are good. In spite of God and people being good, injustices ended in this world only when the oppressed stood up or someone else stood up for them. Slavery did not end until it consumed 620,000 lives in a bloody Civil War. Jim Crow did not end until blood was spilt on the Edmund Pettis Bridge, not until civil rights workers were murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, and not until Federal Government stood up to enforce those inalienable rights accorded to all men as enshrined in our constitution.

ALWAYS REMEMBER "IF YOU ARE NOT AT THE TABLE LOOKING AT THE MENU, YOU WILL BE ON THE MENU" (attributed to Sen. Mike Enzi) AND “BAD THINGS HAPPEN IN THIS WORLD WHEN GOOD MEN AND WOMEN DO NOT DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT”

Ajay Raavi