The story of Darryl Rosser's kindness touched me in a very profound way. Like millions of people, I listened to will.i.am's "Yes We Can". Like everyone else, I embraced "the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon." One might quibble this song was just another retelling of the American Story that, once again, glossed over important and disgraceful chapters.
It was sung by immigrants
as they struck out from distant shores
and pioneers who pushed westward
against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes We Can.
Those immigrants included my grandparents and my great-grandparents. I will always be grateful for their courage. However, I know the pioneers who pushed westward were not a people without a land, staking their claim to a land without a people. We cannot undo that damage, but we can heal this world. I often listened to the song on my MP3 player in the car. Alone in the car I could cry without embarrassing myself.
At first, I didn't know why I cried. I found the answer in a poem by Darian Dauchan, who aptly said, "it's as if we are learning to love again." The poem is about Obama, but it speaks to all of us...
Here's the line in context:
When will your demons come to light?
When will your skeletons creep from the closet?
Slip and say the wrong things?
Start compromising yourself
your ideals
your integrity
until there is nothing left of you.
Because you know as well as I do
that great people with good intentions
have lost their souls in the process.
Fighting for freedom
but in the end settling for power.
But we're a needy people.
See, we demand so much from our heroes
we forget they're human beings.
Placing pedestals so high
no mere mortal can reach them.
Longing for saints
when all we really want
is someone to aspire to be like.
To remind us that we can all be better.
But our hearts have been broken.
It's as if we are learning to love again.
Yet I can't help but not have faith in you,
not wish the best for you.
So damn you Barack.
For turning this cynic into a believer
and the ideal of the audacity of hope.
Damn you Obama.
Rhymes with Osama.
You courageous
intelligent
impressive
distinguished
pretty
muthafucka.
It was significant to me that the recent campaign marked the 40th anniversary of Bobby Kennedy's and Martin Luther King's assassinations. News of King's death spread quickly through Harlem that night. By the time we heard it, he was gone and all that remained was the rage.
Bobby's death was different. We went to bed full of hope and awoke to a nightmare. Even though we walked through the valley of death, life went on and I went to school. I was in 4th grade. I remember bringing the attendance sheet to the office and all the secretaries were huddled around the radio. They were listening to reports updating news of Bobby's surgery. One was praying the rosary and they were all crying. I don't know how long I was there before they noticed me and took the attendance sheet.
I didn't realize how traumatic that was for me and millions of other Americans. It just lay there for 40 years, an untended wound. I guess it was just too painful to address, so we papered it over with distractions. We raced to the Moon, but haven't gone back since. We sank into a stupor and let a second-rate actor seduce us with siren songs about a Shining City on the Hill while US guns killed US nuns and priests were executed in front of their flock.
Prosperity came and went -- for most of us. In our shock and awe we let a fake cowboy, all hat and no cattle, mislead us into attacking people who never could have hurt us. Amidst the plunder and the slaughter, his base, "the haves and the have-mores" as he called them, made a killing. Surrounded by hateful harpies these criminals worked overtime to poison the well of public discourse from which we had previously drawn so much strength. 1984 was looking more and more like a textbook than a novel.
Then a skinny guy with a funny name and ears as big as his smile, had a message that was turned into a song that became an anthem. That song reminded me of something I had buried under all that pain. That's why the song moved me to tears. I wanted to believe it, but deep down I was still afraid of having my heart broken again.
That song convinced me to stop yelling at the TV, turn it off and go outside, to knock on doors of complete strangers and ask them to join us. It gave me the courage to go into parts of the country where the Stars and Bars still fly and people like me are not welcome. It gave me the power to convince men who looked like me, but thought completely differently, that they needed to have a courageous conversation with themselves, an important conversation about the kind of world they would leave to our children.
I had faith, but I didn't believe we would prevail until the day I asked people online for their support. In one day, based solely on the kindness of strangers, we raised more money than the average American makes in a month. All I had to do was ask people for twenty dollars and eight cents... and they responded generously because they knew it was the change that mattered most. That's when I knew it was true
nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
It's hard to believe that the plea of a little girl in a crumbling school in Dillon, SC could stir so many people so far away yet fall on deaf ears so close to home. To this day, I am amazed that Governor Mark Sanford turned his back on that child. I'm amazed because Mark Sanford was once an Eagle Scout. Once upon a time Mark Sanford embraced, lived, and exemplified the Scout Oath
On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.
Somewhere along the way, Sanford fell into the trap Darian Dauchan identified in his poem. Along the way he compromised his ideals and his integrity until all that was left was the empty quest for power.
There is nothing magic about Eagle Scouts. They are the result of constant, consistent effort. I've seen first hand what that kind of care can do for a boy. It puts him on a path towards success. There's a reason people call it "the straight and narrow" path. It's easy to lose your bearings along the way. That's where Mark Sanford's example proved so valuable. Faced with Sanford's failure to act, something stirred in the heart of Darryl Rosser.
Twenty, thirty, forty years from now people will still remember what Darryl Rosser did for them and how it fundamentally changed their lives. That is the kind of story they will tell their children and their grandchildren. It’s the kind of story that never grows old.
There's a reason men and women like Darryl Rosser inspire us to find the courage we need to learn how to love again. They remind us we don't need saints, just people we can aspire to be like. They remind us we can all be better. That's a gift for all of us, not just a little girl in a crumbling school. It's a kindness you can't repay. It's a debt you pay forward.
We've been told many times the battles ahead will be long and the climb will be steep. I'm ok with that. We don't know what's at the end of that road, but I am confident that if we stay on this path we will find something more valuable than fame, fortune, or power. We'll find the success that only comes from sharing the gift of kindness with strangers.