Commencement season is a time for praise, applause and even self-congratulation, which is why we appreciate President Barack Obama for including some tough love and direct challenges to the Class of 2013 at Morehouse College in Atlanta, who were fortunate to have the leader of the nation as their commencement speaker – even if he told them some things they maybe did not wish to hear on such a joyous occasion. While Obama’s “no excuses” message is seen by some as pandering to whites by lecturing to black audiences, the president rightly tempered his praise and encouragement with challenge.
“There are some things, as black men, we can only do for ourselves,” Obama told the youth. “There are some things, as Morehouse Men, that you are obliged to do for those still left behind. As Morehouse Men, you now wield something even more powerful than the diploma you’re about to collect – and that’s the power of your example.”
Obama was anything but vague. He went down a list of desirable professions these young men are gearing up to pursue and told them what their responsibilities will be when they get there. Lawyers, he said, must “find some time to defend the powerless.” Businessmen must ask themselves “what broader purpose your business might serve, in putting people to work or transforming a neighborhood.” Doctors must “heal folks in underserved communities who really need it.”
It’s not all about you and the money you hope to make, the president challenged them. He also knew that was not exactly what they were hoping to hear from him.
“I know that some of you came to Morehouse from communities where life was about keeping your head down and looking out for yourself. Maybe you feel like you escaped, and now you can take your degree and get that fancy job and the nice house and the nice car – and never look back,” Obama told them. He understands that. “With doors open to you that your parents and grandparents could not even imagine, no one expects you to take a vow of poverty,” he said. “But I will say it betrays a poverty of ambition if all you think about is what goods you can buy instead of what good you can do.”
Obama named a few black men who have demonstrated, not “a poverty of ambition” but a wealth of it: Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson; filmmaker Spike Lee; and Chester Davenport, one of the first people to integrate the University of Georgia Law School.
Columnist Cynthia Tucker has since praised one of the graduates in Obama’s audience, Genarlow Wilson, who was imprisoned for statutory rape after having consensual sex with a 15-year-old when he was only 17 and went on to get his education while giving lecture tours to teens on alcohol, drugs and sexual responsibility.
We think of Newark Mayor Cory Booker, another busy speaker this commencement season, who took his elite degrees from Stanford University and Yale Law School to Oxford, England as a Rhodes Scholar before going home, moving into public housing and starting a daring grassroots campaign for mayor of his home city.
We think of our friend St. Louis Juvenile Court Judge Jimmie Edwards. Judge Edwards grew frustrated at only seeing our youth – so very many of them black boys and young black men – when they are already ensnared by the criminal justice system. Judge Edwards built a team to open Innovative Concept Academy in an effort to reach this struggling population before public schools have given up on them or they have dropped out. The brainchild of Judge Edwards, Innovative Concept Academy was founded in 2009 for at-risk juveniles expelled from the city’s public schools or who were on parole. It is the only school in America overseen by a court system dedicated to the education and rehabilitation of delinquent teens. This is precisely the kind of community leadership that Obama challenged the Morehouse Men to put on their agendas.
“Nobody cares how tough your upbringing was,” Obama told the young men. “Nobody cares if you suffered some discrimination. And moreover, you have to remember that whatever you’ve gone through, it pales in comparison to the hardships previous generations endured – and they overcame them. And if they overcame them, you can overcome them, too.”
