She wrote: "When I become famous, I will tell everyone that I know a hero named Marlon Peterson."
Napisala je: „Kad postanem slavna, svima ću reći da poznajem heroja po imenu Marlon Piterson.“
Heroes rarely look like me. In fact, I'm what garbage looks like. No, not the most appealing way to open a talk or start a conversation, and perhaps you have some questions going through your head about that. Why would this man say such a thing about himself? What does he mean? How can someone view him as a hero when he sees himself as garbage?
Heroji uglavnom ne izgledaju kao ja. Zapravo, smeće obično izgleda kao ja. To baš i nije najlepši način da započnem govor ili počnem razgovor, i možda vam se neka pitanja motaju po glavi o tome. Zašto bi ovaj čovek rekao tako nešto o sebi? Na šta tačno misli? Kako neko može da ga vidi kao heroja kad on sebe vidi kao smeće?
I believe we learn more from questions than we do from answers. Because when we're questioning something, we're invested in taking in some sort of new information, or grappling with some sort of ignorance that makes us feel uncomfortable. And that's why I'm here: to push us to question, even when it makes us uncomfortable.
Mislim da više učimo od pitanja nego od odgovora. Jer kad nešto preispitujemo, predano upijamo neku novu informaciju, ili se rvemo sa nekakvim neznanjem zbog kojeg se osećamo neprijatno. I zato sam ja ovde: da postavim pitanje, čak i kad nam je zbog njega neprijatno.
My parents are from Trinidad and Tobago, the southernmost island in the Caribbean. Trinidad is also home to the only acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century: the steel pan. Deriving from the African drums and evolving from the genius of one of the ghettos in Trinidad, a city called Laventille, and the disregard of the American military ... Well, I should tell you, America, during WWII, had military bases set up in Trinidad, and when the war ended, they left the island littered with empty oil drums -- their trash. So people from Laventille repurposed the old drums left behind into the full chromatic scale: the steel pan. Playing music now from Beethoven to Bob Marley to 50 Cent, those people literally made music out of garbage.
Moji roditelji su iz Trinidada i Tobaga, najjužnijeg ostrva u Karibima. Trinidad je domovina i jedinom akustičnom istrumentu koji je pronađen u 20. veku: čeličnom bubnju. On potiče od afričkih bubnjeva i razvio se iz genijalnosti jednog od getoa u Trinidadu, grada koji se zove Laventij, i neobaziranja na američku vojsku... Pa, da vam kažem, Amerika je tokom II svetskog rata imala vojne baze u Trinidadu, i kad se rat završio, otišli su sa ostrva krcatog praznim kantama od ulja - njihovim smećem. Tako su ljudi iz Laventija preradili te stare kante u punu hromatsku skalu: čelične bubnjeve. Sad sviraju muziku od Betovena do Boba Marlija i 50 Senta, ti ljudi su bukvalno napravili muziku od smeća.
Twelve days before my 20th birthday, I was arrested for my role in a violent robbery attempt in lower Manhattan. While people were sitting in a coffee shop, four people were shot. Two were killed. Five of us were arrested. We were all the products of Trinidad and Tobago. We were the "bad immigrants," or the "anchor babies" that Trump and millions of Americans easily malign. I was discarded, like waste material -- and justifiably so to many. I eventually served 10 years, two months and seven days of a prison sentence. I was sentenced to a decade of punishment in a correctional institution. I was sentenced to irrelevance -- the opposite of humanity.
Dvanaest dana pre mog 20. rođendana, uhapšen sam zbog učešća u nasilnom pokušaju pljačke u donjem Menhetnu. Dok su ljudi sedeli u kafiću, četvoro je upucano. Dvoje je ubijeno. Nas petoro je uhapšeno. Svi smo bili proizvod Trinidada i Tobaga. Bili smo „loši imigranti“ ili „bebe sidra“ koje Tramp i milioni Amerikanaca olako kleveću. Bio sam odbačen, kao otpadni materijal - i to opravdano, prema mnogima. Na kraju sam odslužio 10 godina, dva meseca i sedam dana zatvorske kazne. Bio sam osuđen na deceniju kazne u popravnoj instituciji. Bio sam osuđen na beznačajnost - suprotnost čovečnosti.
Interestingly, it was during those years in prison that a series of letters redeemed me, helped me move beyond the darkness and the guilt associated with the worst moment of my young life. It gave me a sense that I was useful. She was 13 years old. She had wrote that she saw me as a hero. I remember reading that, and I remember crying when I read those words.
Ono što je zanimljivo, baš tokom tih godina u zatvoru mnoga pisma su me iskupila, pomogla mi da izađem iz mraka i krivice povezane sa najgorim trenutkom mog mladog života. Dala su mi osećaj da sam koristan. Ona je imala 13 godina. Napisala je da u meni vidi heroja. Sećam se kad sam to čitao, sećam se da sam plakao dok sam čitao te reči.
She was one of over 50 students and 150 letters that I wrote during a mentoring correspondence program that I co-designed with a friend who was a teacher at a middle school in Brooklyn, my hometown. We called it the Young Scholars Program. Every time those young people shared their stories with me, their struggles, every time they drew a picture of their favorite cartoon character and sent it to me, every time they said they depended on my letters or my words of advice, it boosted my sense of worthiness. It gave me a sense of what I could contribute to this planet. It transformed my life.
Ona je bila jedan od preko 50 studenata i 150 pisama koja sam napisao tokom mentorskog programa prepiske koji sam osmislio s prijateljem koji je bio nastavnik u osnovnoj školi u Bruklinu, mom rodnom gradu. Nazvali smo ga Program mladih naučnika. Svaki put kad bi ti mladi ljudi podelili svoje priče sa mnom, svoje borbe, svaki put kad bi nacrtali sliku svog omiljenog crtanog lika i poslali mi je, svaki put kad bi rekli da zavise od mojih pisama ili mojih saveta, moj osećaj vrednosti je rastao. To mi je dalo osećaj da mogu doprineti planeti. To mi je promenilo život.
Because of those letters and what they shared with me, their stories of teen life, they gave me the permission, they gave me the courage to admit to myself that there were reasons -- not excuses -- but that there were reasons for that fateful day in October of 1999; that the trauma associated with living in a community where guns are easier to get than sneakers; that the trauma associated with being raped at gunpoint at the age of 14; that those are reasons for me why making that decision, that fatal decision, was not an unlikely proposition.
Zbog tih pisama i onoga što su delili sa mnom, tih priča o tinejdžerskom životu, dali su mi dozvolu, dali su mi hrabrost da priznam sebi da su postojali razlozi - a ne izgovori - da su postojali razlozi za taj kobni dan oktobra 1999. godine; da trauma vezana za život u društvu gde su pištolji dostupniji nego patike; da trauma vezana za silovanje pod nišanom sa 14 godina; da su to moji razlozi zašto takva vrsta odluke, takva fatalna odluka, nije bila neverovatna opcija.
Because those letters mattered so much to me, because writing and receiving and having that communication with those folks so hugely impacted my life, I decided to share the opportunity with some friends of mine who were also inside with me. My friends Bill and Cory and Arocks, all in prison for violent crimes also, shared their words of wisdom with the young people as well, and received the sense of relevancy in return. We are now published writers and youth program innovators and trauma experts and gun violence prevention advocates, and TED talkers and --
Zato što su mi ta pisma toliko mnogo značila, zato što je slanje i primanje i komunikacija s tim ljudima tako jako uticala na moj život, odlučio sam da podelim priliku s nekim svojim prijateljima koji su bili tamo sa mnom. Moji prijatelji Bil, Kori i Aroks, svi u zatvoru zbog nasilnih zločina, takođe su delili mudrosti s mladim ljudima i dobijali osećaj značaja zauzvrat. Sada smo objavljivani pisci, inovatori programa za mlade, eksperti za traume zagovornici prevencije oružanog nasilja, TED govornici i -
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
and good daddies. That's what I call a positive return of investment.
i dobre tatice. To je ono što nazivam pozitivnim povratkom investicije.
Above all else, what building that program taught me was that when we sow, when we invest in the humanity of people no matter where they're at, we can reap amazing rewards.
Iznad svega drugog, stvaranje tog programa naučilo me da kad posejemo seme, kad ulažemo u čovečanstvo i ljude, gde god se nalaze, možemo da požnjemo neverovatne nagrade.
In this latest era of criminal justice reform, I often question and wonder why -- why is it that so many believe that only those who have been convicted of nonviolent drug offenses merit empathy and recognized humanity? Criminal justice reform is human justice. Am I not human? When we invest in resources that amplify the relevancy of people in communities like Laventille or parts of Brooklyn or a ghetto near you, we can literally create the communities that we want.
U ovom najnovijem dobu reforme kriminalne pravde, često se pitam i čudim se zašto - zašto toliki ljudi veruju da samo oni koji su osuđeni za nenasilne prestupe sa drogom zavređuju empatiju i ljudskost? Reforma kriminalne pravde je ljudska pravda. Zar ja nisam čovek? Kad ulažemo u sredstva koja povećavaju značaj ljudi u društvima poput Laventija, delova Bruklina ili vašeg obližnjeg geta, bukvalno možemo da stvorimo društva koja želimo.
We can do better. We can do better than investing solely in law enforcement as a resource, because they don't give us a sense of relevancy that is at the core of why so many of us do so many harmful things in the pursuit of mattering. See, gun violence is just a visible display of a lot of underlying traumas. When we invest in the redemptive value of relevancy, we can render a return of both personal responsibility and healing. That's the people work I care about, because people work.
Možemo bolje. Možemo bolje od isključivog ulaganja u primenu zakona kao sredstva, jer oni nam ne daju osećaj značaja koji je u srži razloga zašto mnogi od nas rade mnogo štetnih stvari tragajući za značajem. Vidite, oružano nasilje je samo vidni izraz skrivenih trauma. Kad ulažemo u vrednost značajnosti koja iskupljuje, možemo stvoriti povratak i lične odgovornosti i ozdravljenja. To je rad ljudi do koga mi je stalo, jer ljudi rade.
Family, I'm asking you to do the hard work, the difficult work, the churning work of bestowing undeserved kindness upon those who we can relegate as garbage, who we can disregard and discard easily. I'm asking myself.
Porodice, molim vas za mnogo rada, za težak rad, za iscrpljujući rad darivanja nezaslužene dobrote onima koje možemo proterati kao smeće, koje možemo lako zanemariti i odbaciti. Tražim od samog sebe.
Over the past two months, I've lost two friends to gun violence, both innocent bystanders. One was caught in a drive-by while walking home. The other was sitting in a café while eating breakfast, while on vacation in Miami. I'm asking myself to see the redemptive value of relevancy in the people that murdered them, because of the hard work of seeing the value in me. I'm pushing us to challenge our own capacity to fully experience our humanity, by understanding the full biography of people who we can easily choose not to see, because heroes are waiting to be recognized, and music is waiting to be made.
Tokom poslednja dva meseca, izgubio sam dva prijatelja zbog oružanog nasilja. Obojica su bili nevini prolaznici. Jedan je upucan u prolazu dok se vraćao kući. Drugi je sedeo u kafiću i doručkovao, na odmoru u Majamiju. Tražim od samog sebe da uvidim iskupljujuću vrednost značajnosti u ljudima koji su ih ubili, jer je neko teško radio da bi video vrednost u meni. Teram nas da izazivamo sopstveni kapacitet da potpuno iskusimo svoju ljudskost, razumevajući celu biografiju onih koje lako možemo izabrati da ne vidimo, jer heroji čekaju da ih prepoznaju i muzika čeka da se napravi.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)