I took a lot of hard classes at Swarthmore and I've done a lot of hard things in my life, but following Colman Domingo on this stage may be the very hardest.

Thank you to the faculty and administration for this honor and for recognizing that the hard and unglamorous work of social justice is worthy of an honorary degree. Graduates and families, thank you for letting me join your celebration.

I asked a few college students what they would like to hear from someone like me and they said I should be authentic, funny, hopeful, and brief. I can’t be both authentic and funny so I’ve chosen authentic, but I can be hopeful and brief.

Graduates, there are so many ways that you are light years ahead of where I was when I sat in your seat. I suspect, for example, that you understand privilege, bias and inequity in a way that I only began to understand after college.

I went to college when we didn’t even have phones in our dorm rooms, let alone computers, AI, or smart phones. It wasn’t all bad, though. Back then we still had very progressive income and corporate tax rates, and wealthy people and corporations paid more of their share of taxes. The top tax rates back then were almost double what they are today.  

Our government policies since then have made life easier for the rich – but much harder for people living in poverty. Wages for low-income Americans haven’t kept pace with rising costs. When I started college, someone making the federal minimum wage spent half their salary on rent. Today, that same person would have to work three full-time jobs to make half of the average rent.  

I promise this isn’t an economics lecture.  

But, thinking about how the world was different back then is a good reminder that what the world looks like today is a choice. The extreme income and opportunity gap in this country is a result of conscious decisions made over the past 50 years. And because it is a choice – you can choose to change it.

As you venture out into the world, I hope you will choose to fix some of the problems that plague our country – and that my reflections today are valuable as you navigate the next few years.  

First, don’t feel the need to rush into a career. Give yourself time. Literally. As you know too well, this is a difficult moment to try to start a career. Yes, you have to pay those bills! But there is no rush to make a life plan when you are still in your early 20s.  

Second, continue to learn by asking questions.

Be curious about yourself. What facts do you accept and what assertions do you question? 

Be curious about others. What makes it possible for someone to hold a view so different from your own? How has their life, their family, their community been different from yours?

Be curious also about systems and structures.

There is a saying – it doesn’t help to teach a person to swim if they are in the middle of a stormy sea. First, you must calm the waves.

For the children and families I work with, the stormy sea includes poverty, racism and intergenerational trauma. 

In my community – and in the neighborhoods near Swarthmore – there are thousands of children who will have their lives shortened by poverty and racism. Across the country, tens of thousands will die sooner because of our country’s policies on food, guns and health care.  

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Hundreds of thousands have already died because of our foreign policy – from our support of violence to our withdrawal of health aid.

We don’t have to accept this.

The times we are in are unusual. They will not last. How we emerge and what the future looks like is up to you. My first piece of wisdom is to continue to ask questions – about yourself, about others and about the structures that shape us.

But my other piece of advice may seem at odds with the humility that questioning requires.    

You are in a better position today to fight for change, to insist on change, and to build a new world than you will be at any other time in your life. But to do that you need to have confidence in your beliefs, a certainty which can compete with being curious. A willingness not to let perfect be the enemy of the good.

I hope you recognize the power of being someone just out of college. Of not yet having become part of “the system” and with no need to defend the status quo. You are at the dawn of your adult lives; you have a Swarthmore degree and the tools and the time to both think and act.

 A group of alumni and students asked me to address conflict happening at Swarthmore today. I am not currently a part of your community, and it would be hubris for me to interject myself there.     

But I had already planned to talk about balancing action and inquiry. And that is relevant to their concerns.

We live in a world full of injustice. It is impossible to be a consumer without contributing to our inequitable economy. Which of the many injustices in the world will you fight for and which will you quietly benefit from? Isn’t that a question for all of us? 

My Swarthmore education helped me to identify that learning comes from asking questions but also that change requires action. Since I graduated almost 40 years ago, I have spent a lifetime trying to figure out when to pause and ask questions and when to charge forward. I hope you, too, will struggle with this, but I am confident that if you choose to do so, you will succeed in making a difference.

To me that is hopeful.   

Congratulations and take today to fully enjoy the fruits of your labors.