I recently watched “Summer of Soul” and 2 things struck me. One, this is a great movie that deserves a wider audience. Two, how little things had changed in the fifty-two years since its filming. America still doesn’t feed all the food insecure people in the United States. Yet, we want to send people to the moon again.

I was a 21-year-old out of the Army and back from Vietnam when The Harlem Cultural Festival took place. I’m an old white guy now but was a young white guy then self-medicating with alcohol for PTSD. I got a few black friends while in the Army. Most of them were from the inner city in Detroit, Chicago, and New York. I never had black friends before. Don’t judge me. I grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the few blacks I saw were on TV. Scottsdale was one of the many sundown towns in Arizona. Redlining was alive and well and if you wanted to see Black People, you had to go to South Phoenix. I thought the United States had changed. But it hadn’t.

I am ashamed to realize I live in a county that can fight endless wars. Send people to the moon, yet can’t feed the hungry or house the homeless. Can’t stop the police. That should protect all of us from shooting people of color. How little things have changed and not for the better. I’m not against space exploration, but where are our priorities? The priority of the rich get richer and the rest of us get leftovers, that’s where.