I need a new passport for an upcoming trip to Tokyo, Japan. So I sent in my application two Fridays ago.
And the State Department rejected it, the bastards. They didn’t like my photo. Said the dimensions or background were wrong. I have the memo. No biggie. I’ll just pay closer attention to the required photo specs, have my wife take another picture of me, and re-send the application in a couple of days.
I’ve got 2 1/2 months until I need the document anyway. Maybe I should get a haircut first.
But this upcoming Tokyo trip is a huge deal for me, a potential life-changer. So for a few minutes this morning I felt impatient and considered trying to re-shoot my passport photo myself.
And while I thought about how to take the passport self portrait, I looked in my bathroom mirror to see how presentable I was.
Then I remembered it was Martin Luther King Day.
So as I looked over my face, noted my features and how they have aged in nearly 48 years, I asked myself a pretty serious question: Does the color of my face matter any more now than it did when I was four years old and this great man was still alive, still fighting for all of our rights and, more importantly, for our dignity?
“Yes,” was the brutally honest answer I gave myself, as my eyes welled up with tears.
And they were tears for this great man, tears for myself, and tears for the state of things that makes the color of my skin perhaps more important to some people now than it was when that coward shot my hero down in Memphis on an April evening in 1968.
judi (@togainunochi)
/ January 17, 2012It’s unfortunate that there are as many cowards as there are heroes, or perhaps there are more cowards. I have seen to many of my heroes fall in my life time. I keep hoping that it will stop. Then again, I’ve been hoping for a long time that color, shape, size, etc would mean nothing. That we could greet our fellow man with nothing but open arms.
Dan Ryan
/ January 17, 2012Well said.
Dave
/ January 18, 2012I was in the third grade when he was assassinated, and then a few months later, RFK. when King was gunned down, they sent us all home from school for fear of rioting that might have broken out. NYC actually stayed very calm as opposed to other sections of the country which lit up like a massive bonfire.
Dan Ryan
/ January 19, 2012It was a wretched time, from which we have yet to recover.
@Crank_Dub
/ January 25, 2012I don’t think they rejected the photo just because of the background Dan (although it’s certainly wrong). A.f.a i.k. you’re not allowed to smile in passport photos either.
The reason for this is that the saliva produced by smiling might stick the pages of the passport together resulting in a delay of o.38 seconds per passport at passport control. When extrapolated out to all the passports in all the airports in America it would result in a delay equivalent to all the passengers on the Titanic travelling to the moon and back 48,963 times a year. This would be grossly unfair on Kate Winslet.
Dan Ryan
/ January 25, 2012I’m sure that this is correct in the reality in which you currently find yourself, Crank Man.