As I reflect on the recent resignation of Dr. Gay, from the presidential role at Harvard University, I yet celebrate the scholarship and leadership given over the most recent 20 years. I am also reminded that in the contemporary American society, "individual persons" within all cultures, ethnicities, genders, and religions are thriving. However, the objectives of freedom + liberation is not the success of "individual persons," but rather the equitable existence and contribution of an entire population, among celebrating and championing the same for others. Equity is the sum of freedom + liberation, the quest for all lives conceived and living, the intentions for career/occupational efforts, the meaning within arts/religious expressions, and God's expanse even beyond matter (Gen.1:1-2, Ps. 24:1-2). Thus, there should never be surprise when individual persons from our minority cultures rise and fall from the dominant society's pedestals, because it was the individual's opportunity that was given and then retracted. Regardless of retraction, leaders, such as Dr. Gay, yet possess a wealth of academic and culturally endowed equity.
Interestingly, despite America's vast numbers of heroes/ sheroes having moved the nation forward due to the collective efforts of all ethnicities' contributions of their bests in each's own unique ways, there yet exists a dominant society, yet rendering and "taking back" meaningful opportunities. Reflectively, each populace must learn to appreciate, to cultivate, and to contribute its gifts, institutions, and representatives first to itself and then publicly towards collectively building a better society, for self-claiming its equity in that society. My father, Jimmy Denson, a steel-worker, a WWII veteran, who was 1 of 5 children of share-cropper parents, once said to me - as we carried out our weekend home lawn tasks - "Troy, don't look over and envy the neighbor's beautiful green grass. Let's keep watering and fertilizing our grass, and our yard will grow nice n' green, helping make our street one of the best streets in the neighborhood."
Troy L. Denson, Sr., D.Min.
