1
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Good afternoon.

2
00:00:17,688 --> 00:00:19,097
(Audience) Good afternoon.

3
00:00:19,097 --> 00:00:21,103
Let's like take two, okay?

4
00:00:21,103 --> 00:00:22,109
(Laughter)

5
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Good afternoon.

6
00:00:23,212 --> 00:00:24,522
(Audience) Good afternoon.

7
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It's really good to see y'all.

8
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I heard they're running a little under,

9
00:00:27,874 --> 00:00:30,461
so I'm just going to be greedy
and take the extra time.

10
00:00:30,631 --> 00:00:32,784
And I apologize in advance
for my appearance.

11
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You're catching me
on a disheveled travel day.

12
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By sheer coincidence,

13
00:00:37,070 --> 00:00:39,260
I accepted this engagement months ago,

14
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before I knew that this week was actually
the week of publication for my new book.

15
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So I've been trotting all over the place,
essentially putting out fires,

16
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while talking, incidentally,
about the book,

17
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and this is just
what I look like when I travel.

18
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So the theme today was supposed
to be "a sense of wonder,"

19
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and I really don't have any idea
what I'm going to say.

20
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I prepared some remarks,
and they were solid.

21
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You know, I could probably
have turned them in in graduate school

22
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and gotten that A that I was always
so determined to get.

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But I don't have
any interest in saying it.

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For whatever reason,
the exercise was about writing it,

25
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and I have a great woman in my life
named Tennie McCarty.

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She is my grandmother of choice.

27
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I have a family of chance.

28
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God has a sense of humor.

29
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And I also have, today,
a family of choice.

30
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And Tennie McCarty, whom I call Mennie -

31
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it's her grandmammy name -

32
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has taught me many, many things,
one of which is,

33
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"What comes from the head
goes straight over the head.

34
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But what comes from the heart
goes straight to the heart."

35
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So screw the remarks -
coming from the heart.

36
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A lot of people, when they think
of me, Ashley Judd,

37
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wonder, "What the hell happened to her?"

38
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(Laughter)

39
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I semi-retired in 2004.

40
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I did a little picture now and then,

41
00:02:01,650 --> 00:02:04,629
but then they'd see me in something
like "Tooth Fairy" and say,

42
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"I wonder what happened to her -
she's gained a lot of weight."

43
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Well, my financial planner wondered
about the decision that I made too

44
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when I walked away from everything

45
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when, it turns out, I was actually
one of the highest paid women

46
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in the history of Hollywood -

47
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probably not adjusting for inflation,
because Mary Pickford was a big star.

48
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What happened was I was sick and tired
of being sick and tired.

49
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I had no idea what was wrong with me,

50
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but I knew it all looked
real good on the outside,

51
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but on the inside, I hurt.

52
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And I had really no "reason" to hurt,

53
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but as it turns out,
as I've come to realize,

54
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that I came from
a dysfunctional family system

55
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which at times didn't work very well,

56
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and the kinds of things that happened,

57
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that happen in dysfunctional
family systems

58
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happen to all of us.

59
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But my symptoms,
if you will, looked different.

60
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For example, I could be irritable
and unreasonable without even knowing it.

61
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But fortunately,
some folks identified in me

62
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that I had been affected
by alcoholism and other isms,

63
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and they extended me
the same hope and help

64
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that had been so freely given to them.

65
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But what's so weird about all of this

66
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is that in 2004, when I semi-retired
and I started traveling the world

67
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doing feminist social justice work,

68
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public health and human rights work,

69
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I wanted so earnestly
to be useful to my fellows.

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I wanted to be of service,

71
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and yet I was trying to give away
something that I didn't yet have.

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So I kind of had it backwards.

73
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My first trip was to Cambodia.

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I was very open-minded and very willing

75
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yet wholly unprepared
for what I was about to witness.

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The great Mu Sochua,

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who has since that time
been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize,

78
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had pulled her colleague aside and said,

79
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"Let's take this bright light,
this star from Hollywood,

80
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into the darkest corner of hell,"

81
00:04:06,786 --> 00:04:08,767
and that's exactly what those women did.

82
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They took me to
the child brothels of Svay Pak.

83
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And I didn't know what to do

84
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except sit down

85
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and open my mind

86
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and open my heart and open my arms.

87
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And when the first sex slave
came over to me, and I said,

88
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"What would you like
for me to know about you?"

89
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And he began to weep and cry
and tell me his story,

90
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and then I said,

91
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"How did you get
that crazy scar on your face?"

92
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And he said, "Well, the pimps,
when they were breaking me in,

93
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had a dog maul my face
while they were raping me."

94
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And all of a sudden, however improbably,

95
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I had been entrusted -

96
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entrusted -

97
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with this man's story

98
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and of the other many things
that Mennie has taught me

99
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is at the end of our lives,
all we have is our story.

100
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And I've been given permission
by people all over the world -

101
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in slums and refugee camps,

102
00:05:05,872 --> 00:05:08,722
in hospices and makeshift schools,

103
00:05:08,852 --> 00:05:10,084
in clinics in buildings

104
00:05:10,084 --> 00:05:13,193
which in this country
would be condemned structures -

105
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to share their stories with you.

106
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In fact, they have insisted
that that's what I do.

107
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And about that, I have a sense of wonder.

108
00:05:22,637 --> 00:05:26,321
And they don't tell me their stories
because they know me from Hollywood.

109
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They associate Hollywood
with archetypal words like "Mickey Mouse."

110
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It's pretty irrelevant to them.

111
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But I walk in the door
or through the little curtain

112
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where a lot of the sex slaves
in their initial phase of being broken in

113
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are brought in and kept and detained,

114
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and something happens.

115
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They know that they're being witnessed.

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They know that they're being validated.

117
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And even physics tell us

118
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that something, when it perceives
it is being watched, it changes.

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And all of a sudden, orphans
who are hungry and lethargic

120
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and maybe have diarrheal disease
from unsafe drinking water

121
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and have parasites,

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they sit up a little straighter.

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And however shyly, they begin to smile.

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And they even reach out their hands,

125
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and they begin to trust.

126
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And about that, I have a sense of wonder.

127
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The first orphan I met
was a precious girl named Ook Shraylock,

128
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and she was unlike other orphans
in that she was really exuberant.

129
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I think - the story at least
I've made up in my head -

130
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is that she had her parents long enough
to have experienced some nurturing,

131
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and so she had that template,

132
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she had that feeling in her body
of what it's like to be held

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and to be mirthful and to have fun
and to really love somebody.

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And she gave me the greatest gift
I have ever been given

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because she let me love her.

136
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And I held her in my arms,

137
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and when it was about time for me to go
and she clung a little tighter,

138
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and she'd let me know,

139
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she'd just give me
these subtle signals in her body

140
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when she wanted me to rock her.

141
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I realized that the night before,
the very night before I had met her,

142
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I had had a dream
about my mamaw and my papaw,

143
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my beloved paternal grandparents.

144
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And in that dream, my mamaw,
who was always my safe person

145
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and is the reason,

146
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God as my witness,

147
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I am alive today,

148
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had come to me,

149
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and she was so real in the dream,

150
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it was as she was in life.

151
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Every little hair in her eyebrows,

152
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the sweet, little - just everything.

153
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You know those dreams
where they're so real?

154
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And she had held me, and she had said,

155
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"The answer is in the book."

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What a beautifully enigmatic
and highly suggestive thing

157
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for this wonderful woman
to have told me in my dream.

158
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And so holding this girl,
I told her about my dream

159
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and suggested that it's possible
for us to renurture ourselves,

160
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that when we have been loved,

161
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we can, through our imagination,
vicariously conjure those sensations

162
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and remind ourselves
of our very preciousness,

163
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our intrinsic sense of worth

164
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and remember that to somebody,
at some time, we mattered.

165
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And then I told her
I would never forget her.

166
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I did not give her false hope.

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I said, "I don't know
if I'll ever see you again,

168
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but I will tell your story."

169
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And that I have this strange platform,

170
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given to me in a culture and in a media
that I don't even pretend to understand,

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in which I could bring to you her story

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is something about which I wonder a lot.

173
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And when I get too caught up in my head,

174
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I remember what Mennie said:

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"What comes from the head
goes over the head."

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And I make that recommitment to take
the most difficult journey I ever take,

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the one that is more harrowing
as the roads in Congo,

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the one to here, my heart.

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I do a lot of horizontal travel,
and it takes planning.

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There's the passports
and the visa and the bureaucracy,

181
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all the inoculations,

182
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making sure that everything
is set up on the ground, that it's safe.

183
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But there's nothing more important
than the vertical journey,

184
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and it is this one here

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that enables all the other traveling
to happen and to have meaning,

186
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for it is from this place, ultimately,

187
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that meaning is constructed
and that change happens.

188
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Where's the timer?

189
00:10:06,763 --> 00:10:08,018
How am I doing?

190
00:10:08,018 --> 00:10:09,093
(Man) Great.

191
00:10:09,093 --> 00:10:11,892
Well, I know I'm doing great,
but how much time do I have?

192
00:10:11,892 --> 00:10:13,255
(Laughter)

193
00:10:14,930 --> 00:10:16,516
You walked right into that, pal.

194
00:10:16,516 --> 00:10:17,764
I have seven more minutes?

195
00:10:17,764 --> 00:10:19,800
Wooh! I'm just getting started.

196
00:10:19,800 --> 00:10:20,924
(Laughter)

197
00:10:22,724 --> 00:10:27,983
So that first day, when I was in Svay Pak,

198
00:10:29,073 --> 00:10:30,107
for my next trip

199
00:10:30,107 --> 00:10:33,762
I went to the Genocide Museum
in Phnom Penh,

200
00:10:34,062 --> 00:10:38,033
and I saw, briefly

201
00:10:38,033 --> 00:10:42,965
and only to the level which a person
of privilege like I can absorb it,

202
00:10:42,965 --> 00:10:47,993
what it would have been like
to live in a genocidal and murderous time

203
00:10:48,273 --> 00:10:51,433
under the lunatic Pol Pot.

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00:10:52,653 --> 00:10:57,810
And a man who had survived that era,
who was a doctor, told me

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00:10:57,810 --> 00:11:03,512
that for the duration of the Khmer Rouge,
he pretended to be an illiterate peasant

206
00:11:03,512 --> 00:11:08,741
because the educated classes
were all massacred.

207
00:11:09,091 --> 00:11:12,677
And he talked about what
an anguishing choice that was for him

208
00:11:12,677 --> 00:11:14,530
because he could be sitting or standing

209
00:11:14,530 --> 00:11:17,322
alongside one whose life
he could have saved,

210
00:11:17,322 --> 00:11:20,740
but it would have potentially
cost him his own

211
00:11:20,740 --> 00:11:24,777
if he had betrayed his education.

212
00:11:25,497 --> 00:11:30,344
And I said, "What ... did you ..."

213
00:11:31,008 --> 00:11:32,719
I mean, what do you say to someone

214
00:11:32,719 --> 00:11:38,675
who's describing going through
a regime like that?

215
00:11:38,995 --> 00:11:41,860
And he said, "I used to take rocks

216
00:11:41,860 --> 00:11:45,225
and on the ground spell out S-O-S

217
00:11:45,225 --> 00:11:50,390
and hope that the Americans
flying overhead would see the SOS

218
00:11:50,390 --> 00:11:51,952
and help us."

219
00:11:52,722 --> 00:11:55,376
We were busy bombing Laos [inaudible].

220
00:11:55,876 --> 00:11:58,877
So when I went that night
to the American ambassador's residence

221
00:11:58,877 --> 00:12:03,607
to make the remarks and meet
the high-ranking ministers of government,

222
00:12:03,607 --> 00:12:05,496
I said to him, "Where were we?

223
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Why did the United States allow,
at times even contribute to this?"

224
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And he was a really lovely guy,

225
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rather honest fellow and diplomatic.

226
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He said, "We were in rectal defilade."

227
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(Laughter)

228
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When I got back to my hotel room,
I was so astounded and shattered.

229
00:12:29,987 --> 00:12:33,570
I didn't have anywhere in my brain
to put this information;

230
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I was so flooded.

231
00:12:35,023 --> 00:12:37,275
And my heart was just absolutely broken.

232
00:12:37,275 --> 00:12:41,135
I mean, remember, I came into the work
with kind of a broken heart to begin with.

233
00:12:41,135 --> 00:12:44,579
There was a reason
why I was attracted to trauma.

234
00:12:44,579 --> 00:12:47,983
There was a reason why I intuited

235
00:12:47,983 --> 00:12:52,119
I had a very strange capacity
for emotional extremes.

236
00:12:52,119 --> 00:12:55,945
How many of you want to go
to refugee camps for your next vacation?

237
00:12:55,945 --> 00:12:59,156
It is my idea of fun in a perverse way.

238
00:12:59,486 --> 00:13:00,764
So back at my hotel room,

239
00:13:00,764 --> 00:13:02,569
I remember being like -

240
00:13:02,933 --> 00:13:07,712
spinning in these little circles,
not even knowing where to turn,

241
00:13:07,712 --> 00:13:08,988
so I did what I do best

242
00:13:08,988 --> 00:13:11,021
because I'm compulsive about the internet,

243
00:13:11,021 --> 00:13:12,386
and I checked my email.

244
00:13:12,386 --> 00:13:15,171
And I had an email from a friend
here in town, Cathy Lewis.

245
00:13:15,171 --> 00:13:18,449
She's a remarkable chef,
and she was asking me about the food.

246
00:13:18,449 --> 00:13:20,468
Very innocent, travel-type questions,

247
00:13:20,468 --> 00:13:22,293
and, you know, she had some concern

248
00:13:22,293 --> 00:13:26,294
about American franchising
pushing out local, cultural institutions,

249
00:13:26,294 --> 00:13:29,423
and she said, "Oh, gosh.
Is there any Starbucks yet?"

250
00:13:29,503 --> 00:13:31,484
And I was just aggressive.

251
00:13:31,484 --> 00:13:32,721
(Laughter)

252
00:13:32,721 --> 00:13:36,030
And I said, "No,
there's not any Starbucks yet.

253
00:13:36,030 --> 00:13:38,192
There's just intergenerational trauma,

254
00:13:38,262 --> 00:13:40,254
sexual exploitation,

255
00:13:40,444 --> 00:13:43,450
agonizing deaths of children
through starvation,

256
00:13:43,450 --> 00:13:45,563
some really screwed up
immigration policies

257
00:13:45,563 --> 00:13:47,371
from the United States

258
00:13:47,371 --> 00:13:50,734
where we're sending survivors
of the Khmer Rouge's children -

259
00:13:50,734 --> 00:13:54,051
we're deporting them back
to a country that they don't know,

260
00:13:54,051 --> 00:13:59,382
because of little, stupid
immigration things.

261
00:14:00,852 --> 00:14:04,803
And the next thing I knew,
she wrote me back, and she said,

262
00:14:04,803 --> 00:14:07,443
"I am praying for you."

263
00:14:09,193 --> 00:14:13,502
And she asked my permission to send
that diary to other friends and family

264
00:14:13,502 --> 00:14:15,397
who would support me spiritually

265
00:14:15,397 --> 00:14:19,226
while I continued to take
this improbable journey.

266
00:14:20,146 --> 00:14:23,142
And the next day and the next week

267
00:14:23,142 --> 00:14:24,922
and the next country -

268
00:14:24,922 --> 00:14:26,967
And all of a sudden

269
00:14:26,967 --> 00:14:29,218
I'd been to 13 countries around the world,

270
00:14:29,218 --> 00:14:31,549
I'd been to Congo
and Rwanda multiple times,

271
00:14:31,779 --> 00:14:36,398
and I had written 650 pages
of those diaries.

272
00:14:36,808 --> 00:14:40,079
And that is the book
that was published this week.

273
00:14:40,549 --> 00:14:43,460
And in those diaries,
I tell many stories -

274
00:14:43,460 --> 00:14:45,881
because that's really all that they are

275
00:14:45,881 --> 00:14:50,722
is a way for me to have received,

276
00:14:50,722 --> 00:14:52,314
like a sacrament,

277
00:14:52,314 --> 00:14:56,182
an exploited and disempowered
person's story

278
00:14:57,302 --> 00:14:59,836
and celebrate with you

279
00:14:59,836 --> 00:15:04,002
not only their narrative of trauma

280
00:15:04,002 --> 00:15:09,022
but to tell you how beautiful they are

281
00:15:09,152 --> 00:15:13,081
and how resilient, how creative,

282
00:15:13,491 --> 00:15:19,511
and the ingenuity of the poor
is mind-blowing.

283
00:15:22,161 --> 00:15:23,995
Such a woman is Kika.

284
00:15:23,995 --> 00:15:27,213
I met Kika recently
when I was in eastern Congo.

285
00:15:27,673 --> 00:15:31,912
She had crawled
to the Panzi Clinic in Bukavu.

286
00:15:32,412 --> 00:15:33,547
She sat very straight.

287
00:15:33,547 --> 00:15:35,810
She was a fierce kind of a tender woman.

288
00:15:35,810 --> 00:15:37,287
She would often dissociate,

289
00:15:37,287 --> 00:15:41,347
but when she was present, she was magical.

290
00:15:42,117 --> 00:15:46,948
And I said, "How did you get here?"

291
00:15:46,948 --> 00:15:48,518
And she said, "Well, I crawled."

292
00:15:48,518 --> 00:15:50,549
I didn't think
I was hearing her correctly,

293
00:15:50,549 --> 00:15:53,599
so I said, "What would you
like for me to know about your story?"

294
00:15:53,599 --> 00:15:56,229
And she said, "Well,
I was fetching water one day,

295
00:15:56,229 --> 00:15:58,984
and I was attacked by armed militia

296
00:15:58,984 --> 00:16:02,523
who rove the area exploiting
my country's vast mineral wealth."

297
00:16:02,523 --> 00:16:03,732
Minerals, by the way,

298
00:16:03,732 --> 00:16:08,281
in the very computer that I used
to type up my remarks for today.

299
00:16:08,281 --> 00:16:09,278
She said,

300
00:16:09,278 --> 00:16:10,999
"When they attacked me, I screamed,

301
00:16:10,999 --> 00:16:14,342
and I screamed loudly enough
that my brother heard me and came running.

302
00:16:14,342 --> 00:16:16,631
And when he got there,
they heckled him and said,

303
00:16:16,631 --> 00:16:21,493
"Oh, ha. Now that you're here,
rape your sister."

304
00:16:21,493 --> 00:16:22,896
And he said, "I will not."

305
00:16:22,896 --> 00:16:25,280
And they said, "Oh yes, you will.

306
00:16:25,280 --> 00:16:26,932
Rape your sister."

307
00:16:26,932 --> 00:16:28,761
And he said, "I cannot.

308
00:16:28,761 --> 00:16:30,273
She is like my mother."

309
00:16:30,273 --> 00:16:33,378
So they stabbed him to death
with their bayonets in front of Kika,

310
00:16:33,378 --> 00:16:35,009
gang-raped her multiple times.

311
00:16:35,009 --> 00:16:37,442
And when the villagers came
after it was over,

312
00:16:37,442 --> 00:16:40,322
they carried their bodies -
his dead and hers broken -

313
00:16:40,474 --> 00:16:41,420
back to the hut.

314
00:16:41,420 --> 00:16:43,029
But after two weeks,

315
00:16:43,029 --> 00:16:45,462
Kika smelled so bad
from her internal injuries

316
00:16:45,462 --> 00:16:46,463
that they said,

317
00:16:46,463 --> 00:16:49,244
"We're sorry, Kika, but you've got to go."

318
00:16:49,244 --> 00:16:51,505
And that was when she,
with her 11-year-old son,

319
00:16:51,505 --> 00:16:53,952
began to crawl to the Panzi Clinic.

320
00:16:53,952 --> 00:16:55,125
It took her a month.

321
00:16:55,125 --> 00:16:56,530
And I said, "Crawl?"

322
00:16:56,530 --> 00:16:57,981
And she said,

323
00:17:00,240 --> 00:17:03,609
pedaling the air,
showing me how she crawled.

324
00:17:05,539 --> 00:17:08,385
And I when I said, "Kika,
how have you done this?

325
00:17:08,805 --> 00:17:10,306
How have you done this?"

326
00:17:10,306 --> 00:17:12,554
she would just bend
imperceptibly at the waist

327
00:17:12,554 --> 00:17:14,293
when she talked about her brother

328
00:17:14,293 --> 00:17:18,225
and used her cloth from the kitchen
to silently mop her tears.

329
00:17:18,225 --> 00:17:19,329
And she said,

330
00:17:19,329 --> 00:17:22,965
"When I arrived at Panzi
and I was nearly dead,

331
00:17:22,965 --> 00:17:24,745
they did not abandon me.

332
00:17:24,745 --> 00:17:29,024
And when I did not get well,
they did not abandon me.

333
00:17:29,024 --> 00:17:30,498
And when I could not go home

334
00:17:30,498 --> 00:17:33,851
because my area is instable
and my trauma too bad,

335
00:17:33,851 --> 00:17:35,379
they did not abandon me.

336
00:17:35,379 --> 00:17:39,845
And when I did get a little better,
they found me a job in the kitchen,

337
00:17:39,845 --> 00:17:42,941
and they did not abandon me."

338
00:17:43,061 --> 00:17:44,461
And I told her that day,

339
00:17:44,461 --> 00:17:47,241
"Kika, in my own way, however small,

340
00:17:47,241 --> 00:17:48,383
with God as my witness,

341
00:17:48,383 --> 00:17:50,949
I will not abandon you."

342
00:17:55,598 --> 00:18:00,434
There are simple, cost-effective,
grassroots programs

343
00:18:00,434 --> 00:18:04,788
operated within local contexts
by survivors like Kika

344
00:18:04,788 --> 00:18:09,398
that disrupt cycles
of poverty and violence.

345
00:18:10,168 --> 00:18:12,192
They make a difference,

346
00:18:12,192 --> 00:18:15,062
and I have an enormous sense
of awe and wonder

347
00:18:15,062 --> 00:18:20,540
about the people who persevere
when the world seems so senseless.

348
00:18:20,660 --> 00:18:23,105
It is hard work; it is grueling.

349
00:18:23,105 --> 00:18:28,062
And there have been times
when I was debilitated with grief.

350
00:18:28,062 --> 00:18:31,244
But when I remember
Kika and Ook Shreylock,

351
00:18:31,244 --> 00:18:33,886
and I connect between my head and my heart

352
00:18:33,886 --> 00:18:37,375
and take my own vertical journey

353
00:18:41,055 --> 00:18:44,970
and show up at places like this
on sunny spring days

354
00:18:44,970 --> 00:18:46,919
with people like you,

355
00:18:46,919 --> 00:18:48,713
who could be out enjoying

356
00:18:48,713 --> 00:18:52,637
everything that middle Tennessee
has to offer on the ninth of May

357
00:18:52,824 --> 00:18:57,403
but instead share with me
in the sacred narratives of these people.

358
00:18:58,523 --> 00:19:01,468
I feel a sense of wonder about that too.

359
00:19:02,388 --> 00:19:04,356
And now you know,

360
00:19:04,356 --> 00:19:07,505
and with knowing comes responsibility.

361
00:19:07,985 --> 00:19:11,424
When you walk out of here,
you have a choice:

362
00:19:12,354 --> 00:19:14,675
Will you abandon Kika?

363
00:19:16,135 --> 00:19:19,879
Or will you allow yourself
to be vulnerable enough

364
00:19:20,239 --> 00:19:23,976
to have witnessed,
to have seen, to have validated?

365
00:19:23,976 --> 00:19:27,700
It is the birthright of every child
to be listened to.

366
00:19:29,570 --> 00:19:35,143
Will you allow yourself
to be recruited to her welfare?

367
00:19:35,623 --> 00:19:40,446
Because that's the risk that comes
with having a sense of wonder

368
00:19:41,686 --> 00:19:46,861
and being willing
to witness and to validate.

369
00:19:53,282 --> 00:19:55,916
Thanks for letting me share
with you today.

370
00:19:55,916 --> 00:19:57,487
I appreciate your time.

371
00:19:57,487 --> 00:19:59,323
(Applause)