It takes discipline to resist the temptation of identity politics and lean into character. But it’s worth it

Character. I have thought about that word much lately, especially since Monday was the day we observed Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday. It was also the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Hardly a day goes by when someone doesn’t quote to me King’s perhaps most famous words about not judging a man by the color of his skin but by the content of his character. However, do we truly practice seeing character these days?

I say practice because it is a skill. It takes no skill to claim an identity of immutable characteristics. All one has to do is step into the politics of that particular identity and speak in its pre-approved clichés. It also takes no skill to make snap judgments based off someone’s immutable characteristics. This requires nothing less than ignoring the individuality of the person before you and sticking them with every stereotype that comes with that particular identity.

Too often we see this kind of behavior in the cesspool of social media and from our so-called thought leaders who sit behind podcast microphones stirring up outrage to line their pockets with click-bait money. The irony is that many of them tell us to see character and yet they practice the opposite.

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Seeing one’s character doesn’t make money.

Even I have been asked by others to see color first and foremost. When I was on the rooftop raising funds for my community center, we heard about how a white neighborhood in North Chicago had to hire security guards after the George Floyd protests because violence was going on. 

As we prepared to record that story for Fox, several people came up to me and stressed that we should make it about white people finally getting a taste of the violence that plagued our neighborhood. I resisted outright. This was not racial for me. This was about the downward spiral that the values of our city were going down into. I left race out of it and produced what I believed to be a far better and insightful story.

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It takes discipline to resist the temptation of identity politics and to dig deeper down into the character of the person or even the character of society at a given moment. When one does, one often arrives at a deeper and more profound meaning that is closer to the truth. This shouldn’t be surprising because, after all, character is human truth.

We live in the United States of America and that should mean something. If there is anything I learned from King and his long struggle for civil rights it was the lesson of striving to be a man, an individual. Those foot soldiers of his often carried signs proclaiming, “I am a Man.” That was the very essence of our struggle and what was denied to us under centuries of brutal oppression.

So then why would I betray King for the low-class instant gratification of playing identity politics? I have disciplined myself to walk the path of character and that choice has brought me much fruit. 

Today I am in the middle of building a $45 million community center where our focus and the foundation of everything we do will be character. My neighborhood may be mostly Black but we are raising men and women of character and it is my hope that they will become so successful that their names mean something to you one day.

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