Being a good Neighbor

             Being a good neighbor takes several different things into consideration according to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as written in his essay “On Being a Good Neighbor.”(IS 438) Being a good neighbor is far more then just being nice and friendly to the people that live next door to you or those who live around your neighborhood. According to Christ in Kings’ essay, a neighbor “… is anyone toward whom you are neighborly. He is any one who lies in need at life’s roadside. He is neither a Jew nor a Gentile; he is neither Russian nor American; he is neither Negro nor white. He is ‘a certain man’-any needy man- on one of the numerous Jericho roads o life. (IS 438).” If someone is in need that person is our neighbor; No matter what race they might be, what god or gods they believe in, what sexual preference they have, or what gender they belong to. King also states that if we, as people, only worry about our own nationality, and take the phrase “Thou shall not kill to mean Thou halt not kill a fellow Israelite, but for God’s sake, kill a Philistine. (IS 439)” We, as humans, need not to be all consumed by the color of someone’s skin because we are all humans and each of us as human beings should care about the welfare of human beings. We are all a part of the human race, and because of this our slight differences, such as race or nationality, makes us unique, but in no way disqualify one from being a human.
             King goes on to say that if we, as people, “[only give our money to support the fund of helping the poverty and less fortunate, yet we are not willing to actually show
             them our compassion and get down there with them to actually help them ourselves, we are not actually showing the people of those more impoverished countries the compassion that they as human beings so rightfully deserve. It is easy for us as humans to just send some money overseas, but it is not as simple to actually care enough to get down it ...

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Being a good Neighbor. (1969, December 31). In Retrieved 22:44, January 21, 2017, from