If you’ve been around the block a few times, you have probably learned that no group whatsoever is perfect, and even if an organization has a good record thus far it is probably not a perfect record, and anyway there’s no guarantee it will always be that way without constant vigilance.  I’m a proud alumnus for example, and a proud fraternity member, a veteran, a church member, and a political party affiliate.  But I’ve known personally some others and also learned of true reports about a few things concerning my alma mater, fraternity, military service, church and political party that give me, well, some pause.  Not everybody it seems lives up to the same high standards all of the time.  Perhaps they simply deceive from the very beginning, or more than likely they change for the worse, or have a temporary lapse in judgment or discipline.  Benedict Arnold was once a great American hero, who later became a traitor and villain. 

The fact is that I’ve met a lot of folks of different cultures, colors, religions, races, creeds and worldviews.  I liked some of them, and didn’t like others.  I’ve even met quite a few of each, such that, I engage in a few careful generalities.  Of course, the thing about generalities or stereotypes is they can never be true all the time.  I’ve got affinities and suspicions though; I’m wary of spiders and think most geckoes are cute.  I have to agree, however, that color never made a man any more than covers made a good book.  In my life I’ve been forced to mix a lot, and boy am I glad.  I’ve also known homeboys, and because I know more of them I probably dislike more in absolute number terms than any other group.  I just don’t know enough pigmy cannibals with buckteeth to say one way or the other.  Still I like coming home at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I prefer hillbilly music to rap; van Gogh to Picasso; and potato salad made with mustard. 

In 1940 the Christian writer C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters, envisioned the Devil declaring: “And since we cannot deceive the human race all the time, it is very important to us to cut every generation off from all others; for where learning makes a free commerce between the ages there is always the danger that the characteristic errors of one may be corrected by the characteristic truths of another.”  He might have said the same thing about groups at a given time too.  It is one of the reasons I chose to become a historian and a traveler.  In the search for truth, one finds it in the most unexpected places including one’s own backyard.  And “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34). 

An intellectually honest contemporary liberal or conservative supports civil rights in the name of equal opportunity.  Both subscribe wholeheartedly to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s veritable plea to be met, measured, given consideration, and yea, even judged as a man on the basis of character as opposed to skin color.  Diversity in this schema is incidental.  We strive to build and perceive character, and this may very well result in a rainbow of colors and other differences or indeed may not and doesn’t have to.  MLK wanted a fair shake.  He did not subscribe to “black power” or to black separatist movements.  He did not propose reverse discrimination either, or reparations for slavery, or preferential treatment in the name of affirmative action.  Character was his way to inclusion and perhaps existential diversity, but he was too smart a man to advocate or believe in the illogic, that de facto diversity would guarantee character or anything else worth having.  The fact or likelihood that a good man is black does not mean that every black man is good.  Even a white dude, though lacking the moral status of a victim group can be a pretty good guy all things considered. 

Except for the condition of original sin, which affected both equally—not all slaves were saints, and not all slaveholders were sinners.  The same is true of their descendents.  We are more than eight years removed from 9/11.  We are more than seven generations removed from slavery.  Free men today, whether white or black, do not live and thrive inside of an apology or by nursing a grudge.  They owe each other nothing save a fair shake, which Martin Luther King, Jr. eloquently described as being based upon character.  Indeed, we will never move our government forward, much less race relations in the country until, to paraphrase Ward Connerly we cease giving preferences to people simply because they check a box and conferring benefits to people on the basis of checking that box! 

What we need to do instead is to build a culture of character.  As Dr. Matthew Spalding of the Heritage Foundation states, “The revival of a culture of character is assuredly the greatest task we face.”  Phil Kent, president of the Southeastern Legal Foundation explains further, “We must restore the argument of the Founding Fathers… that it takes both the workings of limited government and the proper dispositions and habits of the people to form good government and good character.”  All of which is very much in line with Aristotle, who famously theorized that there could be no liberty, certainly no long lasting liberty, in a nation without having a people of virtue.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was essentially asking us all to become people of virtue, to judge others accordingly, and to accept each other on that basis regardless of shallow, misleading, and ultimately irrelevant things like color.  He was telling his own people the same thing in terms of how they should approach the majority, as well as telling the proverbial silent majority to get over lingering prejudice that blocks fair and accurate assessment of others.  Black, white or brown, as Phil Kent tells us, “It should be the duty of every patriotic American to foster a culture of character and to teach children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews about this country’s founding documents and [the] true heroes the world has known….”  

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Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford.  Widely published in the academic and opinion press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican Primary.  Email: wes@wesriddle.com.