Last week, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker showed what toughness looks like in an era when fighting for a just society is a nonstop endurance test. Booker, one of only 14 African Americans to ever serve in the Senate, spoke against Trump administration policies for more than 25 hours straight without a bathroom break, surpassing Senator Strom Thurmond’s previous record — in that case for a speech opposing civil rights legislation.
In the months ahead, Booker-level toughness may be required of all of us who work in the social change sector. If you have the privilege of American citizenship and work on civil liberties, you’ll need to show your strength by standing up for immigrants whose status makes them vulnerable to deportation. If you have the good fortune to keep your nonprofit job amid global economic upheaval, you’ll need to be tough enough to absorb the responsibilities of your colleagues in the field who, through no fault of their own, have suddenly found themselves unemployed because of Trump administration cuts to government contracts.
The work still needs to get done. Suffering people still need to be served.
This is a marked shift from recent social change culture, in which students at America’s most selective schools and professionals with comfortable six figure salaries encouraged each other to share stories of their own oppression.
We don’t have time to waste now on what author Rob Henderson calls “luxury beliefs,” or ideas whose principal purpose is to signal belonging in an elite class. Pointing out microaggressions, for example, can adversely affect those who are genuinely marginalized and serve as a smokescreen that distracts from the actual work of social change.
Former President Barack Obama made a related point during an interview last week at Hamilton College: “It has been easy during most of our lifetimes to say you are a progressive or say you are for social justice or say you’re for free speech and not have to pay a price for it. Now we’re at one of those moments where, you know what? It’s not enough just to say you’re for something; you may actually have to do something and possibly sacrifice a little bit.”
Sports as a Guide
Where did Booker find the grit and endurance to sacrifice his body for a 25-hour speech? One place was likely on the football field at Stanford University. I have long believed that sports should be viewed as a concrete guide by social change leaders, not just an abstract metaphor.
Defeating other teams on the basketball court or the football field requires strength and sacrifice. Don’t sign up if you don’t want to do the work. Advancing constructive social change also requires strength and sacrifice. And, as in sports, no one should sign up if they don’t want to do the work.
One thing that struck me about Booker’s speech is that while he made it clear he opposed the policies of the Trump administration, he was also candid about the failings of his own team: “I confess that I have been imperfect. I confess that I’ve been inadequate to the moment. I confess that the Democratic Party has made terrible mistakes that gave lane to this demagogue. I confess we all must look in the mirror and say, ‘We will do better.’”
Good coaches are always hardest on their own team. Toughness was the theme of Rick Pitino’s recent halftime speech to his St. John’s men’s basketball team during a game they were losing against Providence: You don’t sit down when things go wrong, Pitino shouted. “You dig in and get tougher. Your whole life is going to be adversity. Learn how to deal with it.”
The team came back to win the game. The speech went viral. Pitino was invited on late night talk shows to discuss it. Turns out that there is a huge audience for coaches inspiring their teams to get tougher.
I think CNN commentator Van Jones is the Rick Pitino of the social change sector. He is unafraid to call out the ridiculousness of people in comfortable positions who describe themselves as oppressed, pointedly noting that social change work is profoundly difficult and requires real toughness.
No Room for Safe Spaces
Jones believes that social change agents don’t need safe spaces to talk about their vulnerabilities as much as they need more opportunities to build their strength. He spoke last month at Interfaith America’s Advancing Campus Pluralism conference about how higher education should prepare students to be effective advocates for social change. Here’s what he said:
“You’ve got to be able to go out and go toe to toe with some of the roughest, toughest people in society if you want to make a difference. This is the gym. … I’m not going to take the weights out of the gym for you; that’s the point of the gym — for it to be hard. Somehow, we got on this whole thing that these kids are supposed to feel good all day.”
And if you think that encouraging toughness is a quality that codes male, watch Duke University women’s basketball coach, Kara Lawson, expound on her famous motto — “handle hard better.”
Or read this story about South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley. Days before the March Madness tournament began, Staley walked into the locker room and drew a large question mark on the white board during halftime because her team, one of the best in the nation, was only winning by eight points against a far inferior opponent. Her point: I’m starting to have questions about this team. Do you really want to play basketball? Do you really have what it takes to win? Do you really deserve to represent the University of South Carolina?
If coaches can demand toughness of their players to win games, why can’t nonprofit leaders look for the same in their staffs to accomplish organizational missions? We should not have higher expectations of our athletes than we do for those fighting for social change. Because at this point in American history, it’s about a lot more than winning games.
