Cast Down Your Bucket
How to Embrace Self-Determination, Not Self-Victimization.
"Why you act so white?"
"Why you got a white mom?"
"Everyone's calling you racist because you don't like Obama."
According to many other black kids, I was trying to be something I wasn't. I faced antagonism and ostracism from middle school to high school because I DARED to be different from mainstream black culture.
I felt incredibly blessed to have been adopted at three years old into a wonderful (mostly) white family that created a legacy of multi-ethnic foster care and adoption. My world was love, not racial divisions.
I was confused, especially when I looked at the glorious moments in Black and American history. What happened?
My adoptive mom didn't allow me to use my skin color or health problems as an excuse for not being successful, especially in education.
It's why today, as controversial as he was, Booker T. Washington is one of my favorite figures from Black History.
He took a nice middle ground. His philosophy stood between the whites who were saying that black education and uplift were useless because blacks were too stupid and inferior and the blacks who wanted to push for aggressive protests and agitation.
He taught that blacks could uplift themselves from the shadow of slavery by recognizing their worth and value, even if no one else did, and get to work!
In his 1895 Atlanta Compromise Speech, he encouraged southern blacks to seek friendly relations with whites and to improve their skills, education, and knowledge as much as possible. To southern whites, he called on them to accept and invest in black skills and education. He called on both groups to work together to rebuild a war-ravaged South.
Listen To His Speech Here
Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are.
Know yourself and what you bring, and build with others. Washington and the students of Tuskegee Institute built their school, brick by brick.
We live in a world today where some companies are buckling down on their DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) programs and policies.
Many of these initiatives, I think, are doing more harm than good. By pushing equity instead of equality, victimhood rather than victor-hood, these initiatives work against what they claim to promote.
Washington's philosophy was about empowering individuals, but today, we see a culture of dependence pushed instead.
Think of it this way. Many blacks in America today are being told by left-leaning social activists they are perpetually held back by systemic oppression and racism. So, they need social policies and programs to get to the same places as everyone else. In other words, equity.
Here's what this sounds like: "Oh, you poor, uneducated, black person! You can't do anything for yourself! Your skin color puts you below everyone else! You'll never get anywhere unless you have help! You need help from the government or our organizations!"
Never mind that blacks in America today are some of the most prosperous in the world.
To whites, the message is sinister: "You evil, terrible white person! You should be ashamed just for being alive! You are constantly oppressing blacks and other groups, and you don't even realize it! You should either bow to these poor, marginalized groups or kill yourselves."
If we go by the dictionary definition, this is racism. Plain and simple. It goes against and punishes those who see personal responsibility, work ethic, and merit as values to live by—American and common sense values rather than "racial" ones.
The term "Race" in itself is a social construct. It supposes that there are different human races rather than one. To use that term is to presume that there is inferiority and superiority according to skin color.
Instead of waiting for handouts or blaming oppression, many successful black Americans today have thrived by focusing on what they can control—just like Washington taught.
History is full of stories of people who rose through oppression by the sweat of their brows. These should inspire us!
The period in which Booker T. Washington was doing much of his work is called The Nadir Of Race Relations. Historians consider it to be one of the worst times to be black in American history. Lynchings, beatings, torture, and other atrocities were widespread. Legal action and protection were rare. I think few Americans can imagine how bad things were.
Booker T. Washington was born a slave too.
I can barely imagine the period of Jim Crow Segregation, let alone slavery, myself.
The fact that some advocated for peace, love, and collaboration during this period across the "races" is remarkable!
My mom and grandparents told me that one of my great-grandfathers (who was white) was one of these people. He tried to start what would have been one of the first churches in his county with a multi-ethnic congregation. This church would have been a place where blacks and whites could worship our Creator together.
My mom still has one of the bibles that would have been in that church.
He was willing to bring about change and improvement with his own hands through building something.
Character, self-determination, dignity, and integrity. Those are the values that hold the keys to success. Build yourself up so you can build others up. Don't let anything hold you back.
What can you do today to cast down your bucket? Where can you take responsibility, work hard, and build something of lasting value?
Go ahead and lower that bucket into the water! You may find it full of fresh water from the mouth of the Amazon River!
P.S. Want to how to figure out what your values are? Check out this article.
"A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority." -Booker T. Washington
DEI is so mysterious to me.