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 ovoj bini, osećam strah. U svom životu, nisam upoznao mnogo ljudi koji će spremno priznati kada se boje. Mislim da je to zato što duboko u sebi znaju kako se to lako širi. Vidite, strah je kao bolest. Kada se širi, širi se kao šumski požar. Ali šta se desi kada, čak i uprkos tom strahu, radite ono što treba da radite? To se zove hrabrost. Baš kao i strah, 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 Istočnog Sent Luisa u Ilinoisu. To je mali grad prekoputa reke Misisipi od Sent Luisa u Misuriju. Živim u Sent Luisu i njegovoj okolini ceo svoj život. Kada je Majkla Brauna mlađeg, običnog tinejdžera, policija ubila 2014. godine u Fergusonu u Misuriju - drugom predgrađu, ali severno od Sent Luisa - sećam se da sam pomislio da on nije prvo i da neće biti poslednje dete koje će izgubiti život zbog policije.
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.
Ali vidite, njegova smrt je bila drugačija. Kada je Majk ubijen, sećam se sila koje su pokušavale da koriste strah kao oružje. Odgovor policije ožalošćenoj zajednici je bio da koristi silu na nametne strah: strah od militarizovane policije, zarobljavanja, novčanih kazni. Mediji su čak pokušali da učine da se bojimo jedni drugih načinom na koji su predstavili tu priču. Sve ove stvari su uspevale u prošlosti. Ali kao što sam rekao, ovaj put je bilo drugačije.
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 Majkla Brauna i ophođenje prema zajednici koje je usledilo su doveli do niza protesta u Fergusonu, Sent Luisu i njihovoj okolini. Kada sam se pridružio tim protestima četvrtog ili petog dana, nije to bilo zbog hrabrosti - bilo je to zbog griže savesti. Vidite, ja sam crnac. Ne znam da li ste to primetili.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
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.
Ali nisam mogao sedeti u Sent Luisu, nekoliko minuta udaljenom od Fergusona, a da ne odem da vidim. Zato sam ustao sa dupeta da to proverim.
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 stigao tamo, našao sam nešto iznenađujuće. Našao sam bes; bilo ga je mnogo. Ali ono čega sam našao više bila je ljubav. Ljudi sa ljubavlju jedni prema drugima. Ljubavlju prema njihovoj zajednici. I bilo je lepo - dok policija nije došla. Onda je nova emocija ubačena 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 da lažem; kada sam video ta oklopna vozila, svu tu opremu, sve to oružje i sve te policajce, bio sam prestrašen - lično. Kada sam pogledao unaokolo po masi, video sam puno ljudi kojima se isto to dešavalo. Ali sam takođe video ljude sa nečim drugim u sebi. Bila je to hrabrost. Vidite, ti ljudi su vikali i vrištali i nisu bili spremni da se povuku ispred policije. Prevazišli su to. Onda sam mogao osetiti da se nešto u meni menja, pa sam vikao i vrištao, i primetio sam da su svi oko mene radili istu stvar. Ništa nije moglo da se uporedi sa tim osećajem.
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 da uradim nešto više. Otišao sam kući i pomislio sam: „Ja sam umetnik. Ja pravim stvari.“ Počeo sam da pravim stvari vezane za protest, stvari koje će biti oružje u duhovnom ratu, stvari koje će ljudima dati glas i stvari koje će ih ojačati za put koji je 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?"
Napravio sam projekat gde sam fotografisao šake protestanata i postavio sam fotografije na zgrade i lokalne prodavnice koje su bile obložene daskama. Moj cilj je bio da podignem svest i moral. I mislim, makar na minut, da je upravo to postignuto. Onda sam pomislio da želim da uzdignem priče ovih ljudi koje sam gledao dok su bili hrabri u tom momentu. Ja i moj prijatelj, režiser i partner, Saba Folijan, smo upravo to uradili sa našim dokumentarnim filmom „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.
Nekako sam postao provodnik za svu ovu hrabrost koja mi je bila data. I mislim da je to deo našeg posla kao umetnika. Mislim da treba da budemo prenosioci hrabrosti u svom radu. I mislim da smo mi zid između normalnog naroda i ljudi koji koriste svoju moć da šire strah i mržnju, naročito 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 vam postaviti pitanje. Svi ste vi nosioci promena, to jest, idejne vođe. Šta ćete uraditi sa talentima koji su vam dani da nas oslobodite straha koji nas svakodnevno 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, vidite, ja se bojim svaki dan. Ne sećam se vremena kada se nisam bojao. Ali kada sam shvatio da strah nije ubačen u mene da me onesposobi, bio je tu da me zaštiti i kada sam shvatio kako da koristim taj strah, pronašao sam svoju moć.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)