If you want carrots, you've got to plant carrots.

However, former Newark City councilman Cory Booker told Bermudians at St. Paul AME Centennial Church Hall yesterday, there are people who feel that - because of what has happened in the past - they don't have to do any planting. “People should be waiting on them.”

“Hold the difficult road,” he said, echoing comments by Community Affairs Minister Dale Butler in yesterday's Royal Gazette.

Mr. Butler said in an opinion piece: “If our forefathers who were emancipated here in 1834 could aim for the top ... why can't this generation do the same with ten times more resources and without overt racism and prejudice? “It's as simple as that ... I do realise that life is not fair and there may be clear examples of blacks being overlooked. But what I do not like is how an increasing number of blacks now lack confidence in themselves and have chosen a non-productive path of whining about how they cannot get ahead.”

Invited to Bermuda to speak as part of the United Bermuda Party's 40th Anniversary celebrations, Mr. Booker reinforced that message yesterday as an important part of the strengths and challenges of diversity.

In a speech peppered with anecdotes and inspiring tales taken from his own life, Mr. Booker presented his audience with a philosophical version of the Nike slogan: Just do it.

To build a coalition through diversity, individuals must focus on three basic things: stand up for childhood values; recognise the value of learning from every human being one meets; and be willing to sacrifice.

Quoting Abraham Lincoln, the American President responsible for Emancipation, Mr. Booker said: “Every man is born an original; but most men die as copies.”

Being true to your childhood values can help prevent that, he said - however it is not enough to just think those values. His father once asked him a math problem once illustrated the difference: “Three frogs are sitting on a log, and one decides to jump. How many are left?”

The answer, Mr. Booker said, is still three. “Mental decisions are not physical acts,”he said.

Citing Ghandi, he added: “If you believe in something, be it. Be the change you want to see in the world ... If you want carrots, plant carrots.”

Mr. Booker told the story of his experience with a Jewish society while attending Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

Coming across a meeting of the society by a series of unfortunate events, Mr. Booker was asked to stay. He did so. However as the sole “large black man” at the meeting of Orthodox Jews,he soon felt entirely out of his comfort zone.

As conversation began to flow, he realised the error of his thinking - and instead of fearing inside to be different, he embraced the chance to learn something new from the outside.

He ended up returning to the meetings for more than a year along with friends from all walks of life, swelling the society to the second largest of its kind in Oxford.

Learning about different cultures, he explained, makes you better at what you are - and every human being you meet, no matter what their situation, has something to teach you. To learn, however, you have to put your self to the side. “It's so difficult to be truly humble.”

Humility is necessary, however, for some of the greatest lessons can come from those without the advantages that many of us have, he said. “You are never doing charity when you reach out and help somebody. You are always helping yourself.”

The final key, he added, is sacrifice. While in Newark he came up against a gang of drug dealers in his neighbourhood. With no sway over authorities, he felt helpless - until a neighbour told him simply to “do something”.

So, alone, he pitched a tent next to the drug dealers and went on a hunger strike until they stopped dealing.

Ten days later more than 250 people were involved and the drug dealers themselves were sharing stories about how drugs entered their lives.

“If people come together, you can create divinity ... If there is no enemy within, the enemy without can do you no harm.”

Reiterating the Rastafarian concept of “I and I”, Mr. Booker concluded with several proverbs: “A bundle of sticks cannot be broken; when spider webs unite, they can tie together a lion”.

Celebrating and learning from each other's differences is key to the way forward, he said, while failure to embrace diversity will simply bring back the past. “Are you doing enough,” he asked.