Black? White? Brown Month? Pied Beauty Month!

Pied Beauty

(poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, pub. 1918)

Glory be to God for dappled things--

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls, finches' wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough;

And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how??)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change;

Praise him.

Arlee Bird of the blog Tossing It Out, in his post dated 2-15-16, observes that in this month, known as Black History Month in the United States and Canada, much (maybe too much?) has been made of "black" history: 

"There is no doubt that the descendants of African diaspora have made important contributions throughout the world, but so have the peoples from many other cultures.  My preference is to become aware of as much history as I can absorb and have a very keen knowledge of the history that made my country of the United States of America what it is and to discern where it can go in the positive sense."

SAM has told me, and I find it interesting, that many job applications now have a new choice to fill in for the category "race." It's "two or more;" which, I believe, is as it should be. No one race can (or should) be claimed to the exclusion of (or preference for) any other one. There are unintended ethical, legal, and political consequences for making racial distinctions, as we all should know by now. We, as Americans, must acknowledge our differences but celebrate our unity--one nation, you know?