Judge Mathis a big hit at Presbyterian College

Sept. 19, 2006

The star of the syndicated courtroom show, “Judge Mathis,” spoke Tuesday to a packed Belk Auditorium as he opened Presbyterian College’s 2006-07 Russell Series on Adolescence and the Media.

Judge Greg Mathis, who overcame his own struggles as a youth growing up poor in Detroit to become a successful lawyer, circuit court judge, and television celebrity, praised an audience that included college and middle school students and members of the Laurens County community for its diversity.

Judge encourages society to be diverse

Embracing diversity, he said, is one of the keys to overcoming adversity.

“You can’t overcome adversity – you can’t succeed, quite frankly, or go very far in our country today -- unless you believe in and pursue diversity,” Mathis said.

The lessons of the 9-11 attacks in 2001, he noted, taught Americans “there is no color to tragedy.”

“When the lights go out and the bombs come down, we all mysteriously look the same,” Mathis said. “And we must then unite together to fight back against a mutual enemy because we know that we didn’t all come here on the same ships. Some of us came here on the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria and others came over in the holds of slave ships. But the fact is, we’re all in the same boat now. And we must advance our country in that way.”

As the country struggles with issues over immigration, Mathis said its citizens ought to be sensitive to their own history. If you are prejudiced, he said, you are wrong – and lack a sense of U.S. history.

“This country is all made up of immigrants,” he said.

Mathis said there are clear social and economic advantages to embracing immigrants – growing and expanding markets and learning “how to be brothers and sisters and move forward.”

“That’s what advancing a civilization consists of,” he said.

Tribalism is a danger to the country

Today, though, society segregates itself, Mathis said, embracing tribalism whereby we fight and destroy each other.

As he looked out towards the younger members of the audience, Mathis said there are numerous negative influences spreading from inner cities even to rural areas like Clinton, South Carolina – namely gangster culture that is becoming prominent in popular culture.

“It’s all part of a self-destructive, self-defeating culture that’s waging a war for your mind and your souls,” he said.

Young people, Mathis said, must turn this trend around. In other countries, such as China and India, engineering students are graduating in greater numbers than their counterparts in the U.S. If this continues, he said, the future of the country is bleak.

“Engineering advances a society,” he said. “You all are being left behind. Your jobs are being taken. … For a hundred years, we’ve been the world leader. That status is in jeopardy. We can’t bomb our way through this either.”

Despite such dire warnings, Mathis said he maintains hope, calling young people in America “the most talented generation in our history.”

“You’re talented,” he said. “You're leaders.”

Young people dominate U.S. culture

Young people today are the first generation, for example, that has been able to teach older generations through their knowledge of technology, their resourcefulness, and creativity. Young people dominate fashion, athletics, music, art, and fashion, he added, and are becoming more of a factor in politics.

“Never before have our leaders been so young,” Mathis said. “But you must overcome obstacles.”

Federal and state governments spend far more on the prison system than they do on public education – a trend that does not make economic sense, he said. In his own experience, having been incarcerated once, Mathis said he learned that society spent 10 times as much for him to live in jail than it did to help him go to college afterwards.

“I could’ve gone to Yale instead of jail for $60,000,”he said.

But Mathis encouraged his audience to take a stand against injustice.

“Whatever adversity you find, when they put up a stop sign or close the door in your face – kick it down, keep fighting, don’t ever give up and you will reach your goals,” he said.