Transcript:

As a kid growing up, whenever I heard about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., my heart would swell with gratitude. When I considered his dream of a world where we would be judged by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin, I felt like his words had made my life possible – literally.

My dad was a black man who grew up in Detroit. My mom was white. Ten years before I was born, their marriage would have been illegal in several states. My existence, and that of my two younger sisters, was an act of defiance. But it didn’t feel that way to us. We were just kids growing up with our parents. Life wasn’t political. And that was the fulfillment of MLK’s dream, a world – even just within the walls of our own home – where race wasn’t an issue.

Beyond our walls, the rest of the world progressed as well. 

Integration occurred organically. Racist beliefs diminished, became punchlines which brought people together through laughter. The world truly became a better place, for which we all owed a debt of gratitude.

But then our course took a radical shift. A new focus on race took root in our institutions. Gratitude and reconciliation were displaced by grievance and division. The goal post which MLK had firmly set, merit-based character judgments without regard to race, was uprooted and replaced with a moving target – equity. Now, we were no longer going to judge each other based on the content of our character, but by the statistical disparities associated with skin color. Instead of gratitude for what we had, now we would look over the fence and covetously inventory our neighbor.

This massive step backwards has poisoned our culture, ruined our institutions, and soured a generation of children. We are now teaching kids that any failure or lack or inadequacy is not within themselves but due to oppression. It has taken any cell of gratitude and corrupted it into a tumor of grievance. Now, instead of looking at how we can improve ourselves – how we can learn, develop, grow, and achieve – we look to how we can disrupt, foment, and redistribute.

We were almost there. We had almost achieved the dream. We were within sight of a world where merit would serve as currency, and race would prove irrelevant. Instead, we’ve cast aside that dream, allowing grievance and complaint to become the content of our character.

On this MLK Day, we should resolve to correct our course. We should take a fresh look at Martin Luther King’s dream and rise to its challenge within ourselves. Each of us has total control over our attitude. We decide our values. We set our priorities. We bear responsibility for our actions. These things we can change today, at the speed of thought, by making a decision. When enough of us turn from grievance to gratitude, we will summon forth what he called “a bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood.” That’s why we celebrate him, because of the vision he cast for a peaceful world united through human kinship. We won’t get there by complaining and conniving, by looting or burning things down. We will get there by building up, developing merit, and earning respect.