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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Graduations are times for optimism. We should celebrate the development of young people’s minds. People who choose to invest in their own self-betterment have made a wise choice.
That’s why Joe Biden’s commencement address to the graduates of Morehouse College sounds the wrong tone. Among the President’s low lights to the 600 all-black graduates.
“It is natural to wonder if the democracy you hear about works for you.”
“What is democracy if Black men are still being killed in the streets?”
“What is democracy if you have to be ten times better to get a fair shot”
That is the pessimistic message from the President of the United States to the Morehouse men who pledge, upon receiving their degrees, to improve their lives and the lives of others.
And, the President offered them poisonous lies. I would give a much different speech to a graduating class of minorities.
I would say this: The American conscience has changed. It continues to change. Has it changed to the point that racism is no longer? Of course not. And we should all continue to work towards that day.
I will tell you some uncomfortable truths from our past. Lynchings used to be social events. Bigoted whites would pose for photographs next to the victim. Every person of conscience considers lynchings to be abhorrent today.
Blacks used to be forced to sit in the back of public busses, and give up their seats to white passengers if the bus was full. Today there are no whites who would take a seat that had been occupied by a black rider.
A restaurant or lunch counter that posted a ‘whites only’ sign would go out of business. No one would eat there.
The American conscience no longer tolerates theaters where blacks can sit only in the balcony. Or where blacks can’t use a swimming pool, or a water fountain, or stay in the same hotel as others.
I look back on our society from then to now, and it is undeniable that tremendous progress has been made. Not acknowledging that is a bastardization of history. Should we be satisfied? No, not until the racism that still exists today is gone. But we should not leave out that we, all of us in American society, are walking together down the path of equality. We should certainly be able to say that we’ve come a long way down that road.
Chris Conley
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