Out Of The Night That Covers Me

I love movies. I really do. I especially like the ones that I can’t figure out until the very end. Those movies keep me engaged as I search my mind to connect the clues and events in order to predict the ending. Now, most of the time I chose the movies that I want to see by the trailer that comes out to promote the movie a month or so before it actually comes out.

One movie that came out last year titled Invictus was one that I was luke-warm about seeing. I was interested because the title of the movie was the same as one of my all-time favorite poems by William Ernest Henley, and the movie starred two of my favorite actors Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman. However, the trailer suggested that it was a movie about Rugby – one of the few sports that I have little interest in or knowledge about. I’d catch it on DVD or cable “On Demand” one day if there was nothing else out to see, but I wasn’t spending the $9.00 at the movies for the ticket. So yesterday, while scrolling through the On Demand menu, I found Invictus. Nothing better to do, so I decided to watch it. Guess what? Invictus IS NOT a movie about Rugby. I never imagined that this would become one of the most impactful movies that I had ever seen and likely become one of the greatest examples of why Diversity & Inclusion simply must work that I have ever witnessed.

As it turns out, the movie Invictus is based on the book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation by John Carlin. Essentially, the movie is about the initial months of Nelson Mandela’s South African Presidency and how he used a national symbol of hate and separation to unite the country and speed up the true eradication of Apartheid. Black South African’s and white South Africans were separated by many things before the end of Apartheid in 1994, including their national sport. Nelson Mandella saw this as an early opportunity to unite a nation that had been torn apart by oppression and racism. With Black South Africans representing the majority of the population, and Nelson Mandella being a black South African himself, one would think that it would make perfect sense for him to disband the South African national Rugby team, the Springboks, and allow the country to unite under the sport of Soccer, which was the preferred sport of black South Africans…..right? wrong.

Nelson Mandella took the opposite approach. He believed that if he could get the two groups to recognize that the what they have in common is more important than what separates them, then and only then could South Africa heal and unite. Yes they were "Black South Africans" and "White South Africans"….but they needed to focus on the fact that they were ALL "South Africans". To do this, they needed to celebrate the one thing they had in common, their nation, together. The Springboks were in the best position for this as the World Cup was approaching. To inspire the players, Mandella called upon the one thing that got him through each day of his 27 years in prison, the poem Invictus (latin for undefeated or unconquered). As he puts it, it was the one thing that made him “stand up when all he wanted to do is lay down.”

Now, most members of Fraternities and Sororities are familiar with the poem Invictus, which is often recited by candidates for membership to encourage and motivate them to complete the process despite the odds. This is how I came to know this poem. However, the more I think about the words of the poem and the passion it seeks to evoke, I have come to realize that these words are the fuel that must accelerate the fundamental notion that our differences make us interdependent upon each other for true success and therefore we are greater together than we are apart. Invictus says that regardless of the historical obstacles to inclusion for all, regardless of the current biases and stereotypes, regardless of the unbalance of economic power and access to opportunities, we MUST not be deterred. And we must seek success from unlikely sources and in unconventional ways. Marches, vigils and boycotts were fine before. We need a new approach now. That approach needs to include identifying and embracing the value that all people can bring, even if it means reaching out to those that thought you had no value at all. Simply put, we need to be unconquerable in our quest for diversity and inclusion.

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me                

Black as the pit for pole to pole              

I thank whatever gods may be                

For my unconquerable soul.                    

Beyond this place of wrath and tears    

Looms the horror of the shade              

And yet the menace o the years            

Finds, and shall find me unafraid.   

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced or cried allowed
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloodied but unbowed.
      

It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

Thanks. As always I look forward to your comments and reactions. Tune in tomorrow for another Daily Diversity Download.