Fifteen-plus years ago I started working professionally as a Forrest Gump impersonator/look-alike/tribute artist. I’ve used the expression ‘gump-like’ thousands of times to describe a person, one of their attributes, or to define an interaction that occurred between myself and another.
Forrest and Bubba formed a friendship based on color blindness.
* Note: Inspiration for today’s post came directly from MLK’s “I Have a Dream Speech“.
Forrest Gump had many admirable and notable character traits. One of those traits was Forrest’s color blindness. By color blind, I’m not talking about his physical ability to distinguish colors or a color vision deficiency. Rather, I’m referring to his inability to see other human beings as members of a certain race, creed, or sex. Forrest seemed to see others only in terms of their humanness.
Gump-like behavior is being color blind to your fellow human beings’ race, age, sex, creed, or sexual orientation. Gump-like color blindness makes it possible to judge others solely on the content of their character.
Check out being gump-like Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 here.
