Hope, Hopeless and Hopeful

I want to talk to you today about the idea of HOPE, HOPELESS and HOPEFUL:

Webster defines the primary root word of HOPE as one of the 3 Christian virtues.  Furthermore it goes on to define it as the general feeling that some desire will be filled.

To give you an example, which many in this room don’t need but for purposes of this message so of you will be graduating and your parents HOPE that you will go to college, the military get a job and never return home.

Some of your parents HOPE that many of you are prepared for the realities that when you graduate your desire to be grown will now be realized and every 30 days and in February it gets cut to 28 you will be ready for the responsibilities for things called bills. 

However, as a generation I have to be honest as I and many other adults like me will tell you we are increasingly left with feelings of HOPELESSNESS as we look at a generation of young people who are not prepared for the realities of life by the sheer permanence of the decisions they make.  Young and younger people are making decisions that have consequences that will far exceed their lives.  Therefore, leaving older generations to simply wash their hands and reside to trying to save the babies as if somehow you all don’t even exist.    

Now before you tune me out let me say for many of you it’s not your fault.  Matter of fact whenever I get a chance to speak to young audiences like yourself I always say I AM sorry. 

I AM sorry in particular for my generation and for our inability to generate a spirit of HOPE in you that extends beyond the material trappings that you have come to desire.  See our love affair with stuff from Gucci to Queens Harbor and the instantaneous manner in which you can get it has created a void in the social universe that has left the idea of AM I my brother’s keeper trapped in a mandate that says you must serve in order to even graduate.

Therefore, if I could sing in my best Ruben Studdard voice I would say forgive us for we knew not what the road to today would lead us to. 

However, as I look around this room and reflect upon why we are here I AM increasingly HOPEFUL for you and your peers.  See what your accomplishment here today says is there is HOPE permeating within the next generation.  There is HOPE that walks the halls of this great place we call William M. Raines High School.

What your accomplishment today says is the HOPE that was passed down from our African ancestors when they made the journey from the shores of Africa to the shores of America is still alive and the HOPE that was passed from the slaves to the soldiers of the Civil Rights movement who fought and bleed and in some cases died for the right for you to attend some of the best colleges in the world is still alive. 

See what I see in this audience today that makes me HOPEFUL for you is that by virtue of your accomplishment you understand that being good is not good enough.  You do not get to be on the National Honor Society by virtue of who you or your parent know.  Your parent’s relationship with Mrs. Brown or Coach White can’t get you here.  Your cute smile or good looks can’t get you in.   You have to put in the work. 

Your accomplishment today says that you understand that you must burn the midnight oil, you have to be great when everybody else is being good and that ordinary is not going to get me where I need to go and for that as one of the current carriers of the baton for our people each of you make me real proud to look over my should at who I have to pass the baton to and say we collectively got reason to be HOPEFUL. 

I say HOPEFUL because the race of life is not a sprint, but more like a marathon filled with ups and downs and curves and winding roads and in the words of Langston Hughes places where there ain’t been no carpet, bare.  However, you accomplishment says that you understand that.  Therefore, I am simply reminding those who may have forgotten.       

Finally, as I prepare to take my seat know that your parents or guardians are proud of you, your school and all of the people who call William M. Raines their Alma Mata are proud of you, I AM proud of you, but most of all you should be proud of you.  For it is you who put in the work to get here so celebrate a real accomplishment.  But never forget you are here because you stand on the shoulders of people that came before you and the people who came before them and by virtue of your induction into the National Honor Society you to have become shoulders for those behind you to stand on.

Again my name is Irvin PeDro Cohen a 1987 graduate of Raines High School

Namesake and thank you for having me…