Imagine that millions of people of one faith, one heritage, and one community are being targeted by their government. Imagine that these people are being rounded up by the hundreds of thousands and forced into so-called “re-education camps,” where they face brainwashing, torture, neglect, and in some cases death. Imagine that they are slowly being…
Last year, an organization that promotes dialogue invited two authors to hold a “respectful exchange” about racism. I was one of them. The other was Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility. I accepted the invitation. DiAngelo declined. And that was before she went viral. White Fragility has become a bible for diversity advocates in institutional…
How do you avoid being manipulated — whether it’s by family, friends, bosses, politicians, or media pundits? You must always remember: If you don’t have a vision for your life, someone else will have an agenda for it. I taught this lesson in my first Moral Courage class years ago, and it applies even more…
What you’re about to read is a journey — and I launch it with the most famous line in the U.S. Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and…
For most kids in America, the school year is coming to a close. But the civics lesson has only just begun. With protests against police brutality sweeping the nation, there’s a lot to learn about how to be effective, engaged citizens. As an educator of moral courage, I teach young people to do the right…
In work and in life, one of the scariest things to do is negotiate with someone who disagrees with you. It takes moral courage to start, and sustain, that conversation. When I teach this skill, a crucial part of my method is improvisational theater (“improv”). Each participant has to accept what every other participant is…
I teach courage for a living. Over the course of 20 years, I’ve researched, studied, written, filmed, and spoken about the skills needed to exercise “moral courage,” which means doing the right thing in the face of fear. For all of my expertise, though, I’ve absorbed something counterintuitive these past few months: that the quietest,…
Bruce Lee, the martial arts master, would teach his students to “be like water.” What he meant was, water always gets to where it needs to go — even in the midst of obstacles. Water doesn’t demand that those obstacles disappear, or label them as the oppressor. Rather, water washes over them, glides around them,…
On MKL Day 2020, I had the honor of speaking from the very pulpit that the man himself once did — at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. The Rev. Dr. Bernice King, daughter of Martin and Coretta, invited me to pay tribute to him. Which I did with relish. I didn’t remember Dr. King as…
Without a doubt, it was the wrong thing to do. And I knew it. I did it anyway. “You think you can bulldoze anybody,” I sneered at her. “Nobody calls you out on your behavior, so you feel entitled to keep pushing and threatening and intimidating. Well, I’m here to say that I see through…
