I min barndom kunne jeg ikke altid forstå hvorfor mine forældre fik mig til at følge deres regler. Som, hvorfor skulle jeg egentlig slå græsplænen? Hvorfor var lektier egentlig så vigtige? Hvorfor kunne jeg ikke putte vingummier i min havregrød?
Growing up, I didn't always understand why my parents made me follow the rules that they did. Like, why did I really have to mow the lawn? Why was homework really that important? Why couldn't I put jelly beans in my oatmeal?
Min barndom var fuld af disse spørgsmål. Normale ting om barndom og senere finde ud af, at nogen gange var det bedst at lytte til mine forældre, selv når jeg ikke rigtig forstod hvorfor. Og det er ikke fordi de ikke ville at jeg skulle tænke kritisk. Deres opdragelse bestod altid i at forene spændingen imellem at få mine søskende og mig at forstå realiteten i verden, samtidig med at sikre at vi aldrig godtog status quo som uundgåeligt.
My childhood was abound with questions like this. Normal things about being a kid and realizing that sometimes, it was best to listen to my parents even when I didn't exactly understand why. And it's not that they didn't want me to think critically. Their parenting always sought to reconcile the tension between having my siblings and I understand the realities of the world, while ensuring that we never accepted the status quo as inevitable.
Med tiden forstod jeg, at dette, i og med sig selv, var en meget målbevidst form for opdragelse. En af mine yndlingslærere, den brasilianske lærde forfatter Paulo Freire, taler meget eksplicit om behovet for uddannelse til at blive brugt til at skærpe kritisk tænkning og delt menneskelighed. I hans mest berømte bog, "Pædagogik for de Undertrykte," siger han, "Ingen kan være autentisk menneskelig mens han forhindrer andre at være det."
I came to realize that this, in and of itself, was a very purposeful form of education. One of my favorite educators, Brazilian author and scholar Paulo Freire, speaks quite explicitly about the need for education to be used as a tool for critical awakening and shared humanity. In his most famous book, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," he states, "No one can be authentically human while he prevents others from being so."
Jeg har tænkt meget på dette, idéen om menneskelighed, og især, hvem i denne verden får privilegiet at blive betragtet som helt menneskelig. Gennem de sidste mange måneder, har verden måttet se ubevæbnede sorte mænd og kvinder blive dræbt af politiet og selvtægtsmænd. Disse hændelser og alt hvad der er sket efter dem har taget mig tilbage til min egen barndom og beslutningerne som mine forældre tog om at opdrage en sort dreng i Amerika at mens jeg voksede op, forstod jeg ikke altid tingene som jeg gør nu.
I've been thinking a lot about this lately, this idea of humanity, and specifically, who in this world is afforded the privilege of being perceived as fully human. Over the course of the past several months, the world has watched as unarmed black men, and women, have had their lives taken at the hands of police and vigilante. These events and all that has transpired after them have brought me back to my own childhood and the decisions that my parents made about raising a black boy in America that growing up, I didn't always understand in the way that I do now.
Jeg tænker på hvor hårdt det må have været og hvor uretfærdigt det har virket at de følte de måtte fjerne dele af min barndom blot så jeg kunne komme hjem hver aften.
I think of how hard it must have been, how profoundly unfair it must have felt for them to feel like they had to strip away parts of my childhood just so that I could come home at night.
For eksempel tænker jeg på en aften, da jeg som tolv-årig tog på en overnattende ekskursion til en anden by, hvor mine venner og jeg købte Super Soakers og forvandlede hotellets parkeringsplads til vor egen oversvømmede krigszone. Vi gemte os bag biler, løb gennem mørket mellem gadelygterne, og den endeløse latter lød alle vegne på det fortov. Men efter 10 minutter kom min far ud, tog i min arm, og trak mig ind i vores værelse med et hårdt greb. Før jeg kunne sige noget, sige at han fik mig til at se dum ud i mine venners øjne, skældte han mig ud for at være så naiv. Han så mig i øjnene, med et udtryk af frygt i ansigtet, og sagde, "Søn, jeg er ked af det, men du kan ikke opføre dig ligesom dine hvide venner. Du kan ikke lege at du skyder med pistol. Du kan ikke løbe rundt i mørket. Du kan ikke gemme dig andre steder end bag dine egne tænder."
For example, I think of how one night, when I was around 12 years old, on an overnight field trip to another city, my friends and I bought Super Soakers and turned the hotel parking lot into our own water-filled battle zone. We hid behind cars, running through the darkness that lay between the streetlights, boundless laughter ubiquitous across the pavement. But within 10 minutes, my father came outside, grabbed me by my forearm and led me into our room with an unfamiliar grip. Before I could say anything, tell him how foolish he had made me look in front of my friends, he derided me for being so naive. Looked me in the eye, fear consuming his face, and said, "Son, I'm sorry, but you can't act the same as your white friends. You can't pretend to shoot guns. You can't run around in the dark. You can't hide behind anything other than your own teeth."
Jeg ved nu hvor bange han må have været, hvor nemt jeg kunne have været fortabt i natten, at nogen ville synes at griseriet i parkeringspladsen var en god grund til at vaske alt dette væk.
I know now how scared he must have been, how easily I could have fallen into the empty of the night, that some man would mistake this water for a good reason to wash all of this away.
Disse er budskaberne som jeg har fået i overflod hele mit liv: Altid hav dine hænder hvor man kan se dem, ingen drastiske bevægelser, tag hætten af når solen går ned. Mine forældre opdrog mine søskende og mig med en pansermur af råd, et hav af alarmklokker, for at forhindre at nogen ville stjæle vort åndedrag, forhindre at nogen ville tage vort liv. Mine forældre ville sikre sig at vi kunne være børn. Og det er ikke fordi at de ville gøre os bedre end alle andre, de ville blot holde os i live.
These are the sorts of messages I've been inundated with my entire life: Always keep your hands where they can see them, don't move too quickly, take off your hood when the sun goes down. My parents raised me and my siblings in an armor of advice, an ocean of alarm bells so someone wouldn't steal the breath from our lungs, so that they wouldn't make a memory of this skin. So that we could be kids, not casket or concrete. And it's not because they thought it would make us better than anyone else it's simply because they wanted to keep us alive.
Alle mine sorte venner blev opdraget med det samme budskab talen, vi alle hørte når vi blev gamle nok til at blive forvekslet med søm, klare til at hamre i jorden, når folk gjorde vor hudfarve synonym med noget at være bange for.
All of my black friends were raised with the same message, the talk, given to us when we became old enough to be mistaken for a nail ready to be hammered to the ground, when people made our melanin synonymous with something to be feared.
Men hvad gør det ved et barn at vokse op, mens du ved at du simpelthen ikke kan være et barn? At vide, at pubertetens indfald er for farlige for dig, at du ikke kan være nysgerrig, at du ikke har råd til den luksus det er at lave en fejl, at nogens implicitte partiskhed kan være grunden til at du ikke vågner næste morgen.
But what does it do to a child to grow up knowing that you cannot simply be a child? That the whims of adolescence are too dangerous for your breath, that you cannot simply be curious, that you are not afforded the luxury of making a mistake, that someone's implicit bias might be the reason you don't wake up in the morning.
Men det skal ikke definere os. For vi har forældre der opdrog os til at forstå at vore kroppe ikke er skabt til at være skjolde for kugler men for at flyve drager og sjippe, og le til vi får ondt i maven. Vi havde lærere der lærte os at holde hænderne op i klassen, og ikke kun for at overgive os, og at det eneste vi skal opgive er idéen om at vi ikke er denne verden værdige. Når vi siger at sorte liv har betydning, siger vi ikke andre ikke har, det er fordi at vi må bekræfte at vi har ret til eksistere uden frygt, når så mange ting siger os at vi ikke har. Jeg vil leve i en verden hvor min søn ikke vil opfattes skyldig så snart han er født, hvor et legetøj i hans hånd ikke vil forveksles med andet end et legetøj.
But this cannot be what defines us. Because we have parents who raised us to understand that our bodies weren't meant for the backside of a bullet, but for flying kites and jumping rope, and laughing until our stomachs burst. We had teachers who taught us how to raise our hands in class, and not just to signal surrender, and that the only thing we should give up is the idea that we aren't worthy of this world. So when we say that black lives matter, it's not because others don't, it's simply because we must affirm that we are worthy of existing without fear, when so many things tell us we are not. I want to live in a world where my son will not be presumed guilty the moment he is born, where a toy in his hand isn't mistaken for anything other than a toy.
Og jeg nægter at acceptere at vi ikke kan ændre denne verden til et sted, et sted hvor et barns navn ikke vil være skrevet på en t-shirt, eller en gravsten, hvor værdien af et liv ikke bestemmes af andet end at de havde lunger, et sted hvor vi allesammen, alle som én, kan trække vejret.
And I refuse to accept that we can't build this world into something new, some place where a child's name doesn't have to be written on a t-shirt, or a tombstone, where the value of someone's life isn't determined by anything other than the fact that they had lungs, a place where every single one of us can breathe.
Tak skal I have.
Thank you.
(Bifald)
(Applause)