Congratulations to the Class of 2020.

Some of you have graduated already, some of you still have finals - all of you should be very proud. Graduation is a big achievement under any circumstances.

Yours comes as the world is turned upside down by a pandemic and by a country that’s been swept up by protests. I can barely imagine how heads spinning these last few months have been for you.

Just as winter was thawing and you were thinking about spring break, those of you who are away at college were either whisked home or stayed behind on a shuttered campus. Most of you had to finish semesters online which had its ups and down. You didn’t have to worry about what you wore to class but watching your teachers and professors try to work Zoom wasn’t always pretty either.

Either way, none of this is how any of you imagined finishing your final spring at school. Now even if we can’t all gather in person, I want you to remember that a graduation ceremony doesn’t celebrate just a moment in time. It’s the culmination of all your years of learning - about the world and about yourself. The friends and family who supported you every step of the way - they aren’t celebrating a piece of paper, they’re celebrating you, how you’ve grown, the challenges you’ve overcome, and the experiences you’ve shared. You can see that love in all the amazing ways that families have come up with their own at home graduations, drive-by parades to handmade yard signs.

The point is, don’t let the lack of a big, crowded ceremony take anything away from what your graduation signifies. Go ahead and bask in the glory of your achievement and wherever you are, take lots of photos, although, when I look at my graduation pictures, the main thing I realize is that I should have gotten a haircut more often.

Now as was true for generations before you, graduation marks your final passage into adulthood, the time when you’re expected to fully take charge of your life’s direction. It’s when you get to decide what’s important to you, the career you want to pursue, the values you want to live by, who you want to build a family with. That can be intimidating even under normal circumstances and given the current state of things, let’s face it it can be downright scary.

It’s fair to say that your generation is graduating into a world that faces more profound challenges than any generation in decades. It can feel like everything’s up for grabs right now. A lot of this uncertainty is the direct result of COVID-19, the hundred thousand lives it’s taken from us. The economic disruption it’s caused. No one can say for sure how much longer the crisis will last, a lot of that will depend on the choices we make as a country, but you know it will eventually end. Vaccines and treatments will emerge, the economy will begin to heal and life will start returning to normal, and you’ll still have your whole life ahead of you.

The thing is Class of 2020, what these past few weeks have also shown us is that the challenges we face go well beyond a virus and that the old normal wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t working that well. In a lot of ways the pandemic just brought into focus problems that have been growing for a very long time. Whether it’s widening economic inequality, the lack of basic health care for millions of people, the continuing scourge of bigotry and sexism, or the divisions and dysfunction that plague our political system.

Similarly, the protests in response to the killing of George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and Nina Pop, aren’t simply a reaction to those particular tragedies, as heartbreaking as they are, they speak to decades worth of anguish and frustration over unequal treatment and a failure to reform police practices in the broader criminal justice system.

These shocks to the system that we’re seeing right now, just as you prepare to go out into the world, they remind us that we can’t take things for granted, we have to work to make things better. They remind us that our individual well-being depend on the well-being of the community that we live in and it doesn’t matter how much money you make if everyone around you is hungry and sick, it reminds you that our country and our democracy only function when we think not just about ourselves, but also about each other.

So, as scary and uncertain as these times may be, they are also a wake-up call and they’re an incredible opportunity for your generation, because you don’t have to accept what was considered normal before, you don’t have to accept the world as it is, you can make it into the world as it should be and could be you can create a new normal, one that is fairer and gives everybody opportunity and treats everyone equally and builds bridges between people instead of dividing them. Just as America overcame slavery in civil war, recessions, and depression, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11 and all kinds of social upheaval, we can emerge from our current circumstances stronger than before, better than before.

But as has always been true at key moments in history, it’s gonna depend on young people like you to go out there and rewrite what is possible. I’ll admit that it’s a little unfair to lay such a heavy burden on you, I wish that my generation had done more to solve some of our country’s big problems so you didn’t have to. But the good news is that I know you’re up to the challenge, you are the best educated generation in history and a whole lot more technologically savvy. You’ve been exposed to more knowledge and perspectives than my generation ever was. You’re more tolerant, and empathetic, entrepreneurial, environmentally conscious. Even before graduation many of you have already started to make your mark - feeding the hungry, mentoring kids, fighting racial injustice, helping veterans, battling climate change.

And now, to see so many of you participating in peaceful protests, to see so many of you of every race and background raise up your voices on behalf of justice for all, well, it’s been unbelievably inspiring. You make me optimistic about our future.

So, as you prepare for the next stage of what I know will be a remarkable journey, I’ll leave you with a few quick pieces of advice, for what they’re worth.

First, do what you think is right, not just what’s convenient or what’s expected or what’s easy. While you have this time, think about the values that matter to you the most. Too many graduates, who feel the pressure to immediately start running that race for success skip the step of asking themselves what’s really important. And too often they end up as adults who only do what’s good for them and say to heck with everybody else and they end up not having a lot of meaningful relationships or not really feeling as if they made a serious contribution to the world. I hope that instead you decide to moor yourself in values that last, like responsibility, fairness, generosity, and respect for others. That will make you part of the solution instead of part of the problem, and if experience is any guide, it actually makes for a happier life.

Second, listen to each other, respect each other and use all that critical thinking you’ve developed from your education to help promote the truth. You are internet generation in the social media generation, it’s not just how you shop or listen to music or watch videos it’s part of your social lives it’s the new town square where you’ll all come together and meet. In many ways it’s been an amazing tool. In your pockets you have access to more information than any group of people in history. It’s allowed movements of like-minded people to mobilize on behalf of worthy causes. But, what’s become clear, is that social media can also be a tool to spread conflict, division, and falsehoods to bully people and promote hate. Too often it shuts us off from each other instead of bringing us together partly because it gives us the ability to select our own realities independent of facts or science or logic or common sense. We start reading only news and opinions that reinforce our own biases. We start canceling everything else out. We let opinion masquerade as fact and we treat even the wildest conspiracy theories as worthy of consideration. And, the irony is that usually the people who are peddling falsehoods on the internet or social media are doing so for their own purposes - either to sell you something or distract you from the real issues that matter. You can change that. If a friend tells you a COVID-19 is a hoax, politely correct them. If an older relative cites some video to promote a racist stereotype, show him or her why that video is a sham. As a generation that understands social media and technology a lot better than anyone, it’s going to be up to you to create online cultures and communities that respect differences of opinion and freedom of speech and also restore the kind of honest informed fact-based debate that is the starting point for tackling the challenges we face.

Finally, even if it all seems broken, have faith in our democracy. Participate and vote. Don’t fall for the easy cynicism that says nothing can change or that there’s only one way to bring about change. In the midst of recent protests I’ve noticed that there’s been some debates among young people about how useful voting is compared to direct action and civil disobedience in ending discrimination in our society. The fact is, we don’t have to choose we need both - peaceful protests and demonstrations are patriotic they shine a light on injustice, they raise public awareness, they make the folks in charge uncomfortable in a way that’s healthy, after all we’re a nation that was founded on protest. Eventually though your aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices and that only happens when we elect good people at every level who are responsive to our demands. And that includes local offices like the office of mayor or the office of district attorney that don’t get as much attention as a presidential race but have the most direct impact on issues like how communities are policed. In fact, you don’t even have to be an activist to make a contribution to our democracy, if you’ve always dreamed of starting your own business, go build a company that is a model for paying its workers a fair wage. If you’ve dreamed always of being a doctor, think about working in a community that’s short on doctors. There are so many ways to serve. The important thing is to recognize that this nation needs your talents, your passions, your voice to make it better.

You know it’s not always pretty, this democracy of ours, trust me I know it can be loud and messy and sometimes depressing but because citizens took seriously the mandate that this is a government of and by and for the people. Well, bit by bit, generation by generation, we’ve made progress from cleaning up our air and water to creating programs that lifted millions of seniors out of poverty to winning the right to vote and to marry who you love. None of these changes happened overnight or without sustained effort but they did happen usually because young people marched and organized and voted and formed alliances and just lead good lives and looked after their community and their families and their neighborhoods and slowly changed hearts and minds.

America changed, has always changed, because young people dared to hope. Democracy isn’t about relying on some charismatic leader to make changes from on high, it’s about finding hope in ourselves and creating it in others especially in a time like this. You don’t always need hope when everything’s going fine, it’s when things seem darkest, that’s when you need it the most. Now someone once said hope is not a lottery ticket it’s a hammer for us to use in a national emergency to break the glass, sound the alarm, and sprint into action. That’s what hope is it’s not the blind faith that things will get better, it’s the conviction that with effort and perseverance and courage and a concern for others, things can get better. That remains the truest part of our American story. And if your generation sprints into action, it will still be true of America’s future.

Congratulations Class of 2020.

Make it mean something and keep making us proud.