WAS THE INAUGURAL SPEECH REALLY “DARK?”

If the speech was anything, it was the speech of a business man, not a politician. I say that because business people know that business is all about problems ... and problem-solving. Without a problem, there’s no business. Entrepreneurs, in fact, look for problems; they get excited about problems. They know that a great problem is the lifeblood of creativity and innovation — and therefore of a great company.

But, of course, many in the media did not see it that way. They called the 16-minute inaugural speech “dark” and criticized him for highlighting the problems that we face as a nation. Some took offense when he used the word carnage: “But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”

And what he said that they could have (and should have) valued as inspirational, they ignored, like the very next line as well as some of the lines after that.

“We are one nation -- and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny. The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.” “One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world. But that is the past. And now we are looking only to the future.” “Do not let anyone tell you it cannot be done. No challenge can match the heart and fight and spirit of America. We will not fail. Our country will thrive and prosper again.” “It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots...”

Now there was another 16-minute speech at that same place many years before, a speech that was also “dark,” if by dark we mean that the author mentioned the problems that we face. That speech was made by Martin Luther King, Jr. It is known as the I have a Dream speech. This is what Adam Grant in his book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World (2016) wrote: “When we recall Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, epic speech, what stands out is a shining image of a brighter future. Yet in his 16-minute oration, it wasn’t until the eleventh minute that he first mentioned his dream. Before delivering hope for change, King stressed the

unacceptable conditions of the status quo. In his introduction, he pronounced that, despite the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation, “one hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation an the chains of discrimination.” “Having established the fierce urgency of now through depicting the suffering that was, King turned to what could be: ‘But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.’ He devoted more than two thirds of the speech to these one-two punches, alternating between what was and what could be by expressing indignation at the present and hope about the future. According to sociologist Patricia Wasielewski, King articulates the crowd’s feelings of anger at existing inequities, strengthening their ‘resolve that the situation must be changed.’ The audience was only prepared to be moved by his dream of tomorrow after he had exposed the nightmare of today.” (p. 235)

The source of this came from the book, Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Here’s what Dr. King said that was “dark.”

“But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.” “In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." “I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest – quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.”

Now if that is “dark,” then after 11 minutes of it came 5 minutes that we remember as the vision— the Dream: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged

by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

From the NLP perspective— we know that all of us are motivated by away from aversions and dissatisfactions and simultaneously toward attractions, values, and hopes. So when a speaker gives both— the problems to be solved and the hope of the solutions to be created, that speaker offers a propulsion system of the dual motivators. That’s what Martin Luther King Jr. did; and that’s what Donald J. Trump did. So does that make their speeches “dark” or “light?” Well, that brings up another meta-program: optimistic / pessimistic. How do you look at it? What do you put in your focal attention?