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?
Odrastajući nisam uvijek razumio zašto su me roditelji tjerali slijediti pravila koja su oni slijedili. Kao, zašto sam stvarno morao pokositi travu? Zašto je zadaća toliko važna? Zašto nisam mogao staviti gumene bombone u zobenu kašu?
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.
Moje djetinjstvo vrvjelo je takvim pitanjima. Normalna stvar kad si dijete, i shvaćaš da je ponekad najbolje poslušati roditelje iako nisam uvijek znao zašto. I nije to da nisu željeli da ražmišljam kritički. Njihov odgoj uvijek je tražio način kako pomiriti napetost između toga da moja braća i sestre i ja shvatimo kako stvari u svijetu stoje istovremeno osiguravajući da nikada ne prihvatimo status quo kao neizbježan.
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."
Shvatio sam da je to bio, sam po sebi, vrlo svrhovit način obrazovanja. Jedan od mojih najdražih prosvijetitelja, Brazilski autor i učenjak Paulo Freire, govori vrlo eksplicitno o potrebi da se obrazovanje koristi kao sredstvo za kritičko buđenje i dijeljenu čovječnost. U njegovoj najpoznatijoj knjizi "Pedagogija potlačenih" govori: "Nitko ne može biti čovjek dok god ostale sprječava da budu isto."
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.
Puno razmišljam o tome u posljednje vrijeme, o toj ideji čovječnosti, a posebno, tko na ovom svijetu ima privilegiju da ga se doživljava kao potpunog čovjeka. Tijekom nekoliko posljednjih mjeseci svijet je gledao kako nenaoružani crnci i crnkinje bivaju ubijeni od strane policajaca ili osvetnika. Ti događaji i sve što se dogodilo nakon njih vratili su me u moje djetinjstvo i sjetio sam se odluka mojih roditelja o odgajanju crnog dječaka u americi koje, dok sam odrastao, nisam razumio kao sada.
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.
Razmišljam koliko je moralo biti teško, koliko nepravedno je moralo biti osjećati se kako su se oni osjećali dok su otkidali dijelove mog djetinjstva samo da mogu doći kući navečer.
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."
Na primjer, sjećam se jedne večeri, bio sam oko 12 godina i na noćnom putovanju u drugi grad moji prijatelji i ja kupili smo pištolje na vodu i pretvorili hotelski parking u privatno vodeno bojno polje. Skrivali smo se iza auta, trčali kroz tamu između uličnih svjetiljki, sa neprekidnim smijehom svepristunim na kolniku. Ali za desetak minuta, moj tata je izašao van, zgrabio me za ruku i odveo u našu sobu. Prije nego sam mogao bilo što reći, reći mu kako me osramotio pred mojim prijateljima, ismijao me zbog moje naivnosti. Pogledao me u oči, lice mu je obuzeo strah, i rekao: "Sine, žao mi je, ali ne možeš se ponašati jednako kao tvoji bijeli prijatelji. Ne možeš se praviti da pucaš iz pištolja. Ne možeš trčati u mraku. Ne možeš se skrivati nigdje osim iza svojih zubi."
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.
Sada znam koliko je morao biti uplašen, koliko sam lako mogao nestati u noći, samo da je jedan čovjek zamjenio vodu za dobar razlog da sve to opere.
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.
To je vrsta poruka s kojima sam preplavljivan cijeli svoj život: Uvijek drži ruke gdje ih mogu vidjeti, ne kreći se prebrzo, skini kapuljaču kada zađe sunce. Moji roditelji odgojili su braću i sestre i mene u oklopu savjeta, oceanu alarma koji će spriječiti nekoga da nam otme dah iz pluća, da napravi uspomenu od naše kože. Da možemo biti djeca, a ne grobovi od betona. I to ne zato što su mislil da će nas to učiniti boljima od drugih nego zato što su nas željeli održati na životu.
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.
Svi moji crni prijatelji odgajani su sa istom porukom, govor, održan kada smo postali dovoljno stari da nas zamjene za čavao spreman za zakucavanje u zemlju, kada su ljudi poistovjećivali našu boju kože s nečim čega se treba bojati.
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.
Ali, što to učini djetetu odrasti znajući da ne smije biti dijete? Da su hirovi puberteta preopasni za tvoj život, da ne smiješ biti znatiželjan, da si nemožeš priuštiti luksuz pravljenja pogreške, da nečija pristranost može biti razlog da se ujutro ne probudiš.
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.
Ali to nas ne smije definirati. zato što imamo roditelje koji su nas odgojili da razumijemo da naša tijela nisu namjenjena za metke, nego za zmajeve i konope, i smijanje dok nas stomak ne zaboli. Imali smo učitelje koji su nas naučili kako podići ruku u razredu, ne samo da bi signalizirali predaju, i da je jedina stvar koje se trebamo odreći ideja da nismo vrijedni ovoga svijeta. Zato kada kažemo da crni život vrijedi, ne zato što drugi ne, nego zato što moramo potvrditi da smo vrijedni postojanja bez straha, kada nam puno stvari govori da nismo. Želim živjeti u svijetu u kojem moj sin neće biti kriv od trenutka kada se rodi, u kojem igračka u njegovoj ruci neće biti zamjenjena za nešto drugo osim igračke.
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.
I odbijam prihvatiti da ne možemo ovaj svijet izgraditi u nešto novo, neko mjesto gdje ime djeteta ne treba biti napisano na majicu, ili spomenik, gdje vrijednost nečijeg života nije određena ničim drugim osim činjenicom da ima pluća, mjesto gdje svatko od nas smije disati.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)