Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
– Horace Mann, address at Antioch College, 1859, US educator (1796 - 1859)
More teachers should pass this on to their students. More friends should pass this on to their friends. And, more parents should pass this on to their children.
If you’re a middle-class or upper-class African American, you are probably one of the world’s top 10% wealthiest, most powerful, or most prestigious peoples of color. And you are probably in a better position to help humanity achieve important economic, scientific, technological, political, artistic, and cultural victories using the vast resources you control or influence than the world’s 90% poorest, least prestigious, and least powerful peoples of color are. If you would embrace Horace Mann’s advice, or rather his plea, then you might believe that you would have to do something substantial in order to die unashamed. You might believe you owe humanity a special victory or two as a payment of sorts for the comfortable and enriching life you inherited the opportunity to live, for the comfortable and enriching lives you were able to share with your closest friends and family.
Do try to use your powers wisely. Your powers are far from modest. Unfortunately, too few of us care enough about people we don’t interact with regularly to take the time to learn how we could use our powers more wisely, for humanity’s sake. Too few of those who do know how they could use their powers more wisely find the courage to use them more wisely. Though they are already wealthy, prestigious, and powerful, they still fear loss of economic opportunity or increased social or cultural discomfort. These petty fears, if they would allow them to control their actions, might cause them to lose opportunities to win meaningful victories. The opportunity costs of their fearful inaction might be substantial for those who are living and those who will live here. Humanity, especially its long-mistreated Africans, needs many, many more meaningful victories. And, those who would be best situated to win a meaningful victory or two–the wealthy, the prestigious, and the powerful–might have more to be ashamed of if they would die without having even attempted to win a single substantial victory.
One Comment
“If you’re a middle-class or upper-class African American, you are probably one of the world’s top 10% wealthiest, most powerful, or most prestigious peoples of color.”
Maybe. What is true is that wealth (or the appearance thereof) is not synonymous with virtue, or excellent moral character. Although I do see how Mann’s exhortation could be interpreted as an appeal to elites for noblesse oblige.
The converse of wealth’s irrelevance to virtue is poverty’s impertinence to sin/corruption. This explains why Cosby’s rant, while well-intended and genuinely felt, worsened the class schisms and neuroses among Af-Ams.