So, I'm afraid. Right now, on this stage, I feel fear. In my life, I ain't met many people that will readily admit when they are afraid. And I think that's because deep down, they know how easy it spreads. See, fear is like a disease. When it moves, it moves like wildfire. But what happens when, even in the face of that fear, you do what you've got to do? That's called courage. And just like fear, courage is contagious.
Bojim se. Upravo sada, na pozornici, osjećam strah. U životu nisam upoznao puno ljudi koji spremno priznaju kada se boje. Mislim da je to jer u dubini duše, znaju kako brzo se širi. Strah je poput bolesti. Kada se širi, širi se poput požara. No, što se dogodi kada, iako suočeni sa strahom, učinite ono što morate? To se zove hrabrost. I poput straha, hrabrost je zarazna.
See, I'm from East St. Louis, Illinois. That's a small city across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. I have lived in and around St. Louis my entire life. When Michael Brown, Jr., an ordinary teenager, was gunned down by police in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri -- another suburb, but north of St. Louis -- I remember thinking, he ain't the first, and he won't be the last young kid to lose his life to law enforcement.
Ja sam iz East St. Louisa, Illinois. To je mali grad uz rijeku Mississippi, St. Louis, Missouri. Cijeli sam život živio u i oko St. Louisa. Kada je Michaela Browna, običnog tinejdžera, ustrijelila policija 2014. u Fergusonu, Missouri, još jednom predgrađu, no sjeverno od St. Louisa, sjećam se da sam pomislio da on nije prvi, a ni posljednji mladi život koji je odnijela policija.
But see, his death was different. When Mike was killed, I remember the powers that be trying to use fear as a weapon. The police response to a community in mourning was to use force to impose fear: fear of militarized police, imprisonment, fines. The media even tried to make us afraid of each other by the way they spun the story. And all of these things have worked in the past. But like I said, this time it was different.
No, njegova je smrt bila drukčija. Kada je Mike ubijen, sjećam se moći koju donosi nastojanje da se strah koristi kao oružje. Policija je na zajednicu u žalovanju reagirala silom namećući im strah: strah od militarizirane policije, zatvora, novčanih kazni. Mediji su pokušali okrenuti nas jedne protiv drugih načinom na koji su sve prikazali. I sve je to ranije uspijevalo. No, kao što sam rekao, ovaj je put bilo drukčije.
Michael Brown's death and the subsequent treatment of the community led to a string of protests in and around Ferguson and St. Louis. When I got out to those protests about the fourth or fifth day, it was not out of courage; it was out of guilt. See, I'm black. I don't know if y'all noticed that.
Smrt Michaela Browna i odnos prema zajednici nakon toga vodili su nizu protesta u i oko Fergusona i St. Louisa. Kada sam se pridružio protestima, četvrti ili peti dan, nije to bilo zbog hrabrosti, nego zbog grižnje savjesti. Crnac sam. Ne znam jeste li to primijetili.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
But I couldn't sit in St. Louis, minutes away from Ferguson, and not go see. So I got off my ass to go check it out.
Nisam mogao sjediti u St. Louisu, nekoliko minuta od Fergusona i ne otići vidjeti to. Stoga sam otišao provjeriti.
When I got out there, I found something surprising. I found anger; there was a lot of that. But what I found more of was love. People with love for themselves. Love for their community. And it was beautiful -- until the police showed up. Then a new emotion was interjected into the conversation: fear.
Kada sam došao, pronašao sam nešto iznenađujuće. Pronašao sam ljutnju, mnogo ljutnje. No, pronašao sam još više ljubavi. Ljude koji vole sebe. Koji vole svoju zajednicu. I bilo je prelijepo... dok se nije pojavila policija. Novi je osjećaj ušao u razgovor: strah.
Now, I'm not going to lie; when I saw those armored vehicles, and all that gear and all those guns and all those police I was terrified -- personally. And when I looked around that crowd, I saw a lot of people that had the same thing going on. But I also saw people with something else inside of them. That was courage. See, those people yelled, and they screamed, and they were not about to back down from the police. They were past that point. And then I could feel something in me changing, so I yelled and I screamed, and I noticed that everybody around me was doing the same thing. And there was nothing like that feeling.
Neću lagati, kada sam vidio ta oklopna vozila, svu tu opremu i svo to oružje, kao i sve te policajce, bio sam prestravljen... ja osobno. Kada sam pogledao okupljenu gomilu, vidio sam puno ljudi koji su se jednako osjećali. No, prepoznao sam i nešto drugo u njima. Hrabrost. Ti su ljudi vikali, urlali su, i nisu htjeli ustuknuti pred policijom. Nadišli su to u sebi. I tada sam osjetio kako se nešto u meni mijenja, pa sam i ja vikao i urlao te sam primijetio da su svi oko mene činili isto. Ništa nije ravno tom osjećaju.
So I decided I wanted to do something more. I went home, I thought: I'm an artist. I make shit. So I started making things specific to the protest, things that would be weapons in a spiritual war, things that would give people voice and things that would fortify them for the road ahead.
Odlučio sam da želim učiniti više. Otišao sam kući misleći: Umjetnik sam, izrađujem stvari. Pa sam počeo izrađivati predmete posebno za protest, stvari koje mogu postati oružje u duhovnom ratu, stvari koje će ljudima dati glas, koje će ih osnažiti za put pred njima.
I did a project where I took pictures of the hands of protesters and put them up and down the boarded-up buildings and community shops. My goal was to raise awareness and to raise the morale. And I think, for a minute at least, it did just that. Then I thought, I want to uplift the stories of these people I was watching being courageous in the moment. And myself and my friend, and filmmaker and partner Sabaah Folayan did just that with our documentary, "Whose Streets?"
U okviru jednog projekta fotografirao sam ruke pobunjenih te sam ih postavio na daskama obloženim zgradama i lokalnim trgovinama. Moj je cilj bio podići razinu svijesti i ohrabriti. I mislim da sam barem na trenutak to i postigao. Tada sam pomislio da želim izložiti priče tih ljudi koje sam gledao u njihovoj hrabrosti u trenutku. Moj prijatelj i ja, te redateljica i partnerica Sabaah Folayan, to smo i učinili u našem dokumentarcu, "Čije ulice?"
I kind of became a conduit for all of this courage that was given to me. And I think that's part of our job as artists. I think we should be conveyors of courage in the work that we do. And I think that we are the wall between the normal folks and the people that use their power to spread fear and hate, especially in times like these.
Postao sam provodnik za svu tu hrabrost koja mi je dana. Mislim da je to dio posla umjetnika. Mi trebamo prenositi hrabrost u svom radu. Mi smo zid između običnih ljudi i onih koji koriste svoju moć kako bi sijali strah i mržnju, posebno u ovakvim vremenima.
So I'm going to ask you. Y'all the movers and the shakers, you know, the thought leaders: What are you gonna do with the gifts that you've been given to break us from the fear the binds us every day?
Zato ću vas pitati. Sve moćnike, znate, predvodnike: što ćete učiniti s darovima koji su vam dani da nas oslobodite straha koji nas svaki dan sputava?
Because, see, I'm afraid every day. I can't remember a time when I wasn't. But once I figured out that fear was not put in me to cripple me, it was there to protect me, and once I figured out how to use that fear, I found my power.
Jer svakoga se dana bojim. Ne mogu se sjetiti vremena kada se nisam bojao. No, kada sam shvatio da me strah neće onesposobiti, da me štiti, kada sam shvatio kako iskoristiti taj strah, pronašao sam moć.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)