Thanks to MLK Day, He Got Another Chance
Saluting Dr. King
|
Imagine living in a society where you can leave your front
door open and unlocked twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. 98% of your valuables are completely open and
available to the people who live in your community. Wallets are occasionally, dropped
on the sidewalks just to test the environment's integrity. 99% of the time, the wallets and all of its
resources are returned, fully in tact, opened only to find the claimer's
identity. It almost sounds too good to
be true, but such a place exists. It's
called The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina and 99% of the
cadets there are darn near deathly afraid of the school's honor code which
states, "A cadet does not lie, cheat, still nor tolerate those who do." That's the environment I lived in for four
years.
Notice I said 99% of the cadets are afraid. Lucky me found one of the few who decided
to test the waters of dishonesty in the 2000 member institution. I was supposed to report him. If I didn't and someone found out, I would be
ousted. No Ukrainian politics at
Harvard, no wealth management at Georgetown
- ousted! If I did report him, then his
Air Force contract in rare form to African Americans would be yanked and his
dreams of being an astronaut may as well be lost in outer space.
In 1995, cell phones were a luxury. I had one in 1993 but couldn't tolerate the
$60 a month for 30 minutes of talk time.
So I did what most others did and turned to calling cards. However, I wasn't the only one who enjoyed
the use of my calling card. I found out
when I got the bill and realized I must have found a new girlfriend in Georgia (no
women were accepted there at the time).
Instantly, I knew exactly what happened.
Great, now what? My education was
important but I knew my community of people needed two strong individuals who
were far less likely to end up in jail or become dead beat dads. Fortunately, all of this happened around the
celebration of Dr. King's birthday and our guest speaker was one of the
greatest orators of our time, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson.
I took the opportunity to speak to Dr. Dyson and get a few
words of advice that brought success to the predicament. Over a decade later, both cadets have
graduated and doing what we do. I never
heard from the violator again but have heard his name mentioned from a mutual
acquaintance. As we reflect back on the
contributions Dr. King made to this society while being rained on by a cesspool,
I can't help thinking that more than a few people owe a great deal of thanks to
him and we need not look all the way to our current President-Elect Barack
Obama to find shining examples.
This month, I'm not pausing from investments to recommend a
history book, I'm pausing from history to recommend an investment book. The Investment Forum, like my mom, was born
on MLK's birthday. He shed light to the
incredible gap in economic prosperity and I'm just doing my part to close it. This month's book of the month is April 4, 1968 by Dr. Michael Eric Dyson as he poignantly reflects back to that evening
in Memphis at
6:01 p.m. Of all the literature I've
read on Dr. King, Dr. Dyson digs the deepest by far. They say Dr. King's birthday is a day on, not
a day off. I say it's a life won, not a
life lost.
I do leave you with one thought. When I hear the word minorities as referenced
to anyone not white, I think they mean minority in terms of sheer numbers. However, I tend to get the feeling some
people mean minority as in you all just don't matter that much. I've never cared for being called a minority,
I just happen to be black. Comments?
|
