AltBrothers

It’s that time of year again. School Commencement Ceremonies will soon begin.

It’s encouraging. Another year, another set of younger and older men of Afro-pan-darkness who navigated past often unequal/unfair discipline (see editorial by Earl Ofari Hutchinson Racism or Bad Behavior? at Alternet.org). Some are moving from junior high into high school. Others are going from high school into community/technical colleges or liberal arts colleges. A sprinckling are climbing into graduate schools, or even graduating from them with letters like M.A., M.Div., M.Ed., M.F.A., M.S. , M.S.W., J.D., M.D., and Ph.D. And then some put in the time and broke out the sweat and tears, working their way up into the three heavens: Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude, and Suma Cum Laude… Laud-e-mercy! Wow! This is something to celebrate! This is as big, if not bigger than the Final Four, NBA Playoffs, World Series, Super Bowl, and World Cup put together.

Oh, it’s not like that? Tell that to the thousands of brutally whipped or lynched men and women of Afro-pan-dark heritage who suffered to get education and freedom, or the Native Americans and whites who suffered for helping them. Tell that to a child who needs an example of hope for a better life. Tell that to the family of the late Clyde Kennard (see No pardon for dead civil rights activist).

Even today, because of your background, skin color or affectional orientation, you might sometimes confront the “who do you think you are?” or feel that you don’t “belong” or that others question the right of your leadership or even minimal presence on campus, in the classroom, or in the Ethnic and GLBT Student Associations. Yet you made and still make the choice to believe in and apply yourself. You’ll use this same ability to focus your mind and act on that focus in the world of work and continual education. You will be a life-skilled and educated man of Afro-pan-darkness.

Formal academic education can be the difference between getting ahead and being left behind, but it is by no means the “total” of education. Formal education and its quiet or grand ceremonies of accomplishment are significant but also are necessarily only a part of the School of Life. Still, we celebrate the milestone of many choices you’ve made to think deeper and go farther and higher than you’ve done before.

We are brothers… gay, bisexual, straight… single, married, divorced, widowed… Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan… We’re brothers. We have hope and rejoice in each other. We jubilate in your and in our exploratory and pioneering spirit to go forward with imagination and knowledge, creating and leading each other to a better life.

Pomp and Circumstance, spirit drums, horns and pipes will play and be silent again. But we’ll remember, we must remember once again, the beautiful graduation and flight of you and me, of the men of Afro-pan-darkness.