One Brooklyn
January 18, 2016
“We know that Dr. King’s dream is unfinished. Today, as we reflect on the road ahead of us, I am reflecting on his words: “We must learn to live together as brothers, or we are going to perish together as fools.
“We live in challenging times as a city, as a nation, and as a globe. We are surrounded by beautiful diversity in Brooklyn, where 47 percent of us speak a language other than English at home. Yet, there are demagogues in our midst trying to split us apart, to vilify Muslims, Latinos, and other groups.
“We live in a world at risk of radicalization. When I visited a Syrian refugee camp last year, I was struck by the faces of young children with love in their hearts. We can choose to embrace these children and make this world safer for all of us, or we can leave them at risk of being radicalized. The best tool to stop them from being radicalized is for them to be Americanized.
“We must be King-like and remember our core values as Americans and as decent human beings. We must be King-like and resist the extremists that promote divisive hate speech and want to close our borders to people in need. We are a nation of diversity, the sum of peoples from all over the world.
“Let us be King-like and embrace our hyphens. We are African HYPHEN American, Dominican HYPHEN American, Caribbean HYPHEN American, Chinese HYPHEN American, Jewish HYPHEN American, German HYPHEN American. Dr. King knew that our diversity is our strength. We cannot be weakened by those who fail to see that.
“Let us embrace the hyphen in the year ahead, embrace the diversity we share. We are all members of the greatest race alive – the human race. God bless the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
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