Ta-Nehisi Coates is a blogger I've mentioned before. The last couple of days, in response to Rand Paul's comments, he has been running a series of posts on the sit-in to integrate a lunch counter in the train station in Jackson, Mississippi. Actually, Coates is reacting to both Paul's comment that he doesn't think the government should force a private business to integrate its lunch counter and that he is not a racist and would have marched with Dr. King.

I really recommend linking to the three posts (1,2,3). They are powerful, inspirational, and, in their own way, terrifying. The time was 1961, 49 years ago, and, in this black and white picture, it now seems like a different country.

In another different country, now, a similar scene is being played out.

From another different country, this photograph of a group of young men taunting a Palestinian woman
evicted from her home to make way for Israeli settlers seems eerily familiar. Both of these pictures sicken me and the bottom one sickens me the most. I grew up in a household that pretty much worshiped Israel for bringing democracy, enlightenment, and liberalism to a dark corner of the world. The Jewish equivalent of the white man's burden, if you will.

If there is any good to come from this, maybe, just maybe, it will bring on the same kind of revulsion the top picture did.