I think this idea that we share this common humanity is something that we arrive at. It's a journey much like Malcolm X, although his was a fairly dramatic conversion experience. But we are so shaped by our racial identity, our gender identity, sexual orientation, whatever and those are all very important to who we are. In fact together, they make up who we are. But at its very base we are all human beings. At the very foundation of what it means to live and breathe in this world we share a common humanity. But it's often hard to see and often hard to miss because we're so caught up in our other identities. The mystic theologian Howard Thurman said that we were so busy being black or white in our lives that we don't really spend much time just being human.