1
00:00:00,967 --> 00:00:06,147
So people tell me I'm a nice person ...

2
00:00:06,147 --> 00:00:10,189
to the point where it's part
of my personal and professional identity

3
00:00:10,189 --> 00:00:12,473
that I'm so nice

4
00:00:12,473 --> 00:00:14,523
and able to get long with anyone,

5
00:00:14,523 --> 00:00:17,757
even my most fierce opponents.

6
00:00:19,013 --> 00:00:20,106
It's like my "thing,"

7
00:00:20,106 --> 00:00:21,276
it's what I'm known for.

8
00:00:21,515 --> 00:00:22,515
(Laughter)

9
00:00:24,125 --> 00:00:25,800
But ...

10
00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:29,063
what no one knows

11
00:00:29,063 --> 00:00:30,586
is that I was a bully.

12
00:00:32,805 --> 00:00:35,216
Honestly, I didn't think
about it much myself.

13
00:00:35,216 --> 00:00:39,145
I buried the memories for years,

14
00:00:39,145 --> 00:00:41,340
and even still, a lot of it's really hazy.

15
00:00:42,268 --> 00:00:44,914
Denial, by the way, apparently
is also one of my things.

16
00:00:46,568 --> 00:00:48,843
But the more people started to praise me

17
00:00:48,843 --> 00:00:51,606
for being a liberal who could
get along with conservatives,

18
00:00:51,606 --> 00:00:53,803
and the more I wrote articles
about being nice

19
00:00:53,803 --> 00:00:56,769
and gave talks about being nice,

20
00:00:56,769 --> 00:01:00,924
the more I felt this hypocrisy
creeping up inside me.

21
00:01:02,809 --> 00:01:04,911
What if I was actually really mean?

22
00:01:08,028 --> 00:01:12,291
When I was 10 years old,

23
00:01:12,291 --> 00:01:15,053
there was a girl in my class
at school named Vicky.

24
00:01:16,744 --> 00:01:20,426
And I tormented her ...

25
00:01:20,426 --> 00:01:21,522
mercilessly.

26
00:01:23,407 --> 00:01:24,648
I mean, everyone did.

27
00:01:24,774 --> 00:01:26,358
Even the teachers picked on her.

28
00:01:27,754 --> 00:01:29,651
It doesn't make it any better, does it?

29
00:01:31,094 --> 00:01:33,961
Vicky was clearly a troubled kid.

30
00:01:34,424 --> 00:01:36,989
She would hit herself
and give herself bloody noses

31
00:01:36,989 --> 00:01:38,529
and she had hygiene problems --

32
00:01:38,529 --> 00:01:39,957
she had big hygiene problems.

33
00:01:41,234 --> 00:01:43,581
But instead of helping this girl,

34
00:01:43,581 --> 00:01:47,969
who was plainly suffering
from hardships in her life,

35
00:01:47,969 --> 00:01:50,070
we called her, "Sticky Vicky."

36
00:01:51,925 --> 00:01:53,675
I called her, "Sticky Vicky."

37
00:01:56,770 --> 00:02:01,042
My clearest memory
is standing in the empty hallway

38
00:02:01,042 --> 00:02:02,995
outside the fifth grade classrooms

39
00:02:02,995 --> 00:02:05,190
waiting for Vicky
to come out of the bathroom,

40
00:02:05,190 --> 00:02:09,141
and I have a clipboard and a pen
and a survey I've made up,

41
00:02:09,141 --> 00:02:10,930
asking about shampoo preferences,

42
00:02:10,930 --> 00:02:13,689
like I'm doing a study
for science class or something.

43
00:02:13,939 --> 00:02:16,419
And when Vicky comes out of the bathroom,

44
00:02:16,419 --> 00:02:17,436
I pounce on her

45
00:02:17,436 --> 00:02:19,313
and I ask her what shampoo she uses.

46
00:02:19,313 --> 00:02:21,500
Now, to put this in perspective,

47
00:02:21,500 --> 00:02:23,512
I can't remember the names of my teachers,

48
00:02:23,512 --> 00:02:26,530
I can't remember the names
of any of the books I read that year,

49
00:02:26,530 --> 00:02:29,108
I pretty much can't remember
anything from fifth grade,

50
00:02:29,108 --> 00:02:32,061
but I remember that VIcky told me
she used White Rain shampoo.

51
00:02:33,285 --> 00:02:34,657
Clear as yesterday,

52
00:02:34,657 --> 00:02:36,087
like it just happened.

53
00:02:36,823 --> 00:02:37,949
And as classes let out,

54
00:02:37,949 --> 00:02:40,886
I ran down the hall shouting
at all the other kids,

55
00:02:40,886 --> 00:02:43,178
"Sticky Vicky uses White Rain shampoo.

56
00:02:43,178 --> 00:02:45,172
Don't use White Rain shampoo,

57
00:02:45,172 --> 00:02:48,536
or you'll smell like Sticky Vicky."

58
00:02:50,792 --> 00:02:52,792
I forgot about this memory
for a long time.

59
00:02:52,792 --> 00:02:54,655
When I finally started remembering it,

60
00:02:54,655 --> 00:02:56,298
I immediately needed to know more.

61
00:02:56,298 --> 00:02:58,814
I reached out to friends
and eventually social media,

62
00:02:58,814 --> 00:03:01,150
and I did everything I could
to try to find Vicky.

63
00:03:01,150 --> 00:03:03,997
I needed to know that she was OK,

64
00:03:03,997 --> 00:03:05,667
and that I hadn't ruined her life.

65
00:03:08,614 --> 00:03:10,030
What I quickly realized

66
00:03:10,030 --> 00:03:12,982
was I wasn't just trying to figure out
what happened to Vicky.

67
00:03:13,457 --> 00:03:15,645
I was trying to figure out
what happened to me.

68
00:03:17,842 --> 00:03:19,242
When I was 10 years old,

69
00:03:19,242 --> 00:03:24,924
I treated another human being
like some worthless other ...

70
00:03:24,924 --> 00:03:27,373
like I was better than her,

71
00:03:27,373 --> 00:03:28,592
and she was garbage.

72
00:03:30,148 --> 00:03:31,978
What kind of a nice person does that?

73
00:03:32,650 --> 00:03:34,213
I mean, I know I was only a kid,

74
00:03:34,213 --> 00:03:35,858
but not all kids do that.

75
00:03:35,858 --> 00:03:38,107
Most kids don't do that, right?

76
00:03:39,335 --> 00:03:41,727
So, what if I wasn't nice afterall?

77
00:03:41,727 --> 00:03:44,461
I was really just a hateful monster.

78
00:03:46,073 --> 00:03:50,830
Then I started to notice myself
having these mean impulses,

79
00:03:50,830 --> 00:03:52,765
thinking mean thoughts

80
00:03:52,765 --> 00:03:53,981
and wanting to say them.

81
00:03:56,026 --> 00:03:59,144
Admittedly, most of my mean
thoughts were about conservatives.

82
00:03:59,524 --> 00:04:01,217
(Laughter)

83
00:04:04,073 --> 00:04:05,385
But not just conservatives.

84
00:04:05,385 --> 00:04:09,665
I also caught myself thinking mean things
about mushy, centrist liberals

85
00:04:09,665 --> 00:04:11,516
and greedy Wall Street bankers

86
00:04:11,516 --> 00:04:12,894
and Islamaphobes

87
00:04:12,894 --> 00:04:14,538
and slow drivers,

88
00:04:14,538 --> 00:04:16,742
because I really hate slow drivers.

89
00:04:16,742 --> 00:04:17,971
(Laughter)

90
00:04:19,388 --> 00:04:22,364
And as I'd catch myself
in these moments of hypocrisy,

91
00:04:22,364 --> 00:04:24,209
either I was just noticing them

92
00:04:24,209 --> 00:04:26,220
or they were getting worse,

93
00:04:26,220 --> 00:04:27,803
especially in the last few years.

94
00:04:28,213 --> 00:04:30,361
And as I felt more [hageful]--

95
00:04:30,361 --> 00:04:32,785
rageful, really,

96
00:04:32,785 --> 00:04:36,037
I noticed the world around me
seemed to be getting more hateful, too.

97
00:04:36,037 --> 00:04:38,593
Like there was this steady
undercurrent of hate

98
00:04:38,593 --> 00:04:40,684
bubbling up all around us

99
00:04:40,684 --> 00:04:42,391
and increasingly overflowing.

100
00:04:44,180 --> 00:04:46,691
So the plus side, I guess,

101
00:04:46,691 --> 00:04:51,846
is that I realized that hate
was not just my problem,

102
00:04:51,846 --> 00:04:55,420
which is like, the most
selfish plus side ever --

103
00:04:55,420 --> 00:04:56,420
(Laughter)

104
00:04:56,980 --> 00:05:02,431
because now instead of just my own hate
and cruelty to try to figure out,

105
00:05:02,431 --> 00:05:06,435
I had a whole world of hate
I wanted to unravel

106
00:05:06,435 --> 00:05:08,730
and understand and fix.

107
00:05:10,578 --> 00:05:15,639
So I did what all overly intellectual
people do when they have a problem

108
00:05:15,639 --> 00:05:17,209
that they want to understand,

109
00:05:17,209 --> 00:05:18,249
and I wrote a book.

110
00:05:18,947 --> 00:05:20,201
(Laughter)

111
00:05:21,145 --> 00:05:22,564
I wrote a book about hate.

112
00:05:23,535 --> 00:05:25,555
Spoiler alert:

113
00:05:25,555 --> 00:05:26,612
I'm against it.

114
00:05:26,860 --> 00:05:28,769
(Laughter)

115
00:05:29,459 --> 00:05:30,459
Now at this point,

116
00:05:30,459 --> 00:05:32,130
you might be thinking to yourself,

117
00:05:32,130 --> 00:05:33,990
"Why are y'all worried about hate?

118
00:05:33,990 --> 00:05:35,392
You didn't hate Vicky.

119
00:05:35,392 --> 00:05:37,147
Bullying isn't hate."

120
00:05:38,356 --> 00:05:39,475
Isn't it?

121
00:05:41,245 --> 00:05:42,394
Gordon Allport,

122
00:05:42,394 --> 00:05:46,851
the psychologist who pioneered
the study of hate in the early 1900s,

123
00:05:46,851 --> 00:05:49,483
he developed what he called
a "scale of prejudice."

124
00:05:49,483 --> 00:05:54,831
At one end are things like genocide
and other bias-motivated violence.

125
00:05:55,133 --> 00:05:56,809
But at the other end

126
00:05:56,809 --> 00:05:59,974
are things like believing
that your in-group

127
00:05:59,974 --> 00:06:03,543
is inherently superior to some out-group,

128
00:06:03,543 --> 00:06:08,306
or avoiding social interaction
with those others.

129
00:06:09,718 --> 00:06:11,024
Isn't that all hate?

130
00:06:12,227 --> 00:06:14,116
I mean, it wasn't an accident

131
00:06:14,116 --> 00:06:19,054
that I was a rich kid
picking on a poor kid,

132
00:06:19,054 --> 00:06:23,416
or that Vicky, it turns out,
would eventually end up being gay.

133
00:06:24,877 --> 00:06:29,050
Poor kids and gay kids
are more likely to be bullied

134
00:06:29,050 --> 00:06:32,518
even by kids who also end up being gay.

135
00:06:34,110 --> 00:06:37,037
I know there was a lot going on
in my little 10-year-old mind.

136
00:06:37,037 --> 00:06:39,720
I'm not saying hate was the only
reason I picked on Vicky

137
00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:42,725
or even that I was consciously
hateful or anything,

138
00:06:42,725 --> 00:06:44,715
but the fact is,

139
00:06:44,715 --> 00:06:49,469
the people we discriminate against
in our public policies and in our culture

140
00:06:49,469 --> 00:06:54,171
are also the groups of people
most likely to be bullied in school.

141
00:06:56,072 --> 00:06:57,754
That is not just a coincidence.

142
00:06:59,799 --> 00:07:01,440
That's hate.

143
00:07:03,666 --> 00:07:07,546
I am defining hate in a broad way

144
00:07:07,546 --> 00:07:10,691
because I think we have a big problem.

145
00:07:11,397 --> 00:07:13,027
And we need to solve all of it,

146
00:07:13,027 --> 00:07:14,784
not just the most extremes.

147
00:07:15,039 --> 00:07:16,172
So for instance,

148
00:07:16,172 --> 00:07:18,840
we probably all agree
that marching down the street,

149
00:07:18,840 --> 00:07:22,040
chanting about you should take away
rights from some group of people

150
00:07:22,040 --> 00:07:24,101
because of their skin
color or their gender,

151
00:07:24,101 --> 00:07:25,750
we'd all agree that's hate, right?

152
00:07:25,750 --> 00:07:26,749
OK.

153
00:07:27,848 --> 00:07:32,771
What if you believe
that group of people is inferior,

154
00:07:32,771 --> 00:07:33,981
but you don't say it?

155
00:07:35,673 --> 00:07:36,668
Is that hate?

156
00:07:37,844 --> 00:07:41,487
Or what if you believe
that group of people is inferior

157
00:07:41,487 --> 00:07:43,758
but you aren't aware
that you believe it --

158
00:07:43,758 --> 00:07:46,029
what's known as implicit bias --

159
00:07:46,029 --> 00:07:47,179
is that hate?

160
00:07:47,943 --> 00:07:50,181
I mean they all have
the same roots, don't they?

161
00:07:50,181 --> 00:07:53,219
In the historic patterns
of racism and sexism

162
00:07:53,219 --> 00:07:54,636
that have shaped our history

163
00:07:54,636 --> 00:07:56,324
and still infect our society today.

164
00:07:56,324 --> 00:07:57,805
Isn't it all hate?

165
00:07:58,817 --> 00:08:01,242
I'm not saying they're the same thing,

166
00:08:01,242 --> 00:08:03,687
just like I am not saying
that bullying --

167
00:08:03,687 --> 00:08:06,343
being a bully is as bad as being a nazi,

168
00:08:06,343 --> 00:08:12,002
just like I'm not saying that being a nazi
is the same thing as punching a nazi ...

169
00:08:12,002 --> 00:08:15,733
(Laughter)

170
00:08:16,467 --> 00:08:20,461
But hating a nazi is still hate, right?

171
00:08:21,413 --> 00:08:24,129
What about hating someone
who isn't as enlightened as you?

172
00:08:25,231 --> 00:08:28,600
See, what I learned

173
00:08:28,600 --> 00:08:31,266
is that we all are against hate

174
00:08:31,266 --> 00:08:34,240
and we all think hate is a problem ...

175
00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:36,588
we think it's their problem,

176
00:08:36,588 --> 00:08:38,292
not our problem.

177
00:08:38,913 --> 00:08:40,215
They're hateful.

178
00:08:40,755 --> 00:08:43,243
I mean, if i think the people
who didn't vote like me

179
00:08:43,243 --> 00:08:46,729
are stupid racist monsters who don't
deserve to call themselves Americans,

180
00:08:46,729 --> 00:08:48,645
all right, fine, I'm not being nice,

181
00:08:48,645 --> 00:08:49,653
I get it.

182
00:08:49,653 --> 00:08:51,077
(Laughter)

183
00:08:51,668 --> 00:08:53,248
I'm not hateful,

184
00:08:53,248 --> 00:08:54,250
I'm just right,

185
00:08:54,250 --> 00:08:55,250
right?

186
00:08:55,250 --> 00:08:56,473
(Laughter)

187
00:08:56,473 --> 00:08:57,572
Wrong.

188
00:08:59,449 --> 00:09:01,980
We all hate.

189
00:09:02,648 --> 00:09:06,530
And I do not mean that
in some abstract, generic sense.

190
00:09:06,842 --> 00:09:10,651
I mean all of us ...

191
00:09:10,651 --> 00:09:12,468
me and you.

192
00:09:13,939 --> 00:09:19,105
That sanctimonious pedestal of superiority
on which we all place ourselves,

193
00:09:19,105 --> 00:09:22,435
that they are hateful and we are not,

194
00:09:22,435 --> 00:09:26,332
is a manifestation
of the essential root of hate:

195
00:09:26,332 --> 00:09:31,155
that we are fundamentally good
and they are not,

196
00:09:31,155 --> 00:09:32,744
which is what needs to change.

197
00:09:34,159 --> 00:09:37,924
So in trying to understand
and solve hate,

198
00:09:37,924 --> 00:09:40,756
I read every book and every
research study I could find,

199
00:09:40,756 --> 00:09:44,913
but I also went and talked
to some former nazis

200
00:09:44,913 --> 00:09:46,587
and some former terrorists

201
00:09:46,587 --> 00:09:49,050
and some former genocidal killers

202
00:09:49,050 --> 00:09:53,306
because I figured if they could
figure out how to escape hate,

203
00:09:53,306 --> 00:09:54,736
surely the rest of us could.

204
00:09:55,761 --> 00:09:59,796
Let me give you just one example
of the former terrorist I spent time with

205
00:09:59,796 --> 00:10:01,044
in the West Bank.

206
00:10:01,768 --> 00:10:05,756
When Bassam Aramin was 16 years old,

207
00:10:05,756 --> 00:10:10,372
he tried to blow up an Israeli
military convoy with a grenade.

208
00:10:11,828 --> 00:10:14,349
He failed, fortunately,

209
00:10:14,349 --> 00:10:16,788
but he was still sentecned
to seven years in prison.

210
00:10:16,788 --> 00:10:17,952
When he was in prison,

211
00:10:17,952 --> 00:10:19,860
they showed a film about the Holocaust.

212
00:10:19,860 --> 00:10:20,857
Up until that point,

213
00:10:20,857 --> 00:10:23,550
Bassam had thought the Hocolcaust
was mostly a myth.

214
00:10:23,812 --> 00:10:25,533
He went to go watch the film

215
00:10:25,533 --> 00:10:28,950
because he thought he would enjoy
seeing Jews get killed.

216
00:10:30,543 --> 00:10:32,869
But when he saw what really happened,

217
00:10:32,869 --> 00:10:34,250
he broke down crying.

218
00:10:35,763 --> 00:10:37,141
And eventually after prison,

219
00:10:37,141 --> 00:10:40,743
Bassam went on to get a master's
degree in Holocaust studies

220
00:10:40,743 --> 00:10:44,797
and he founded and organization
where former Palestinian combatants

221
00:10:44,797 --> 00:10:48,059
and Israel combatants come together,

222
00:10:48,059 --> 00:10:49,104
work together,

223
00:10:49,104 --> 00:10:50,742
try to find common ground.

224
00:10:52,424 --> 00:10:54,320
By his own account,

225
00:10:54,320 --> 00:10:57,464
Bassam used to hate Israelis,

226
00:10:57,464 --> 00:11:00,761
but through knowing Israelis
and learning their stories

227
00:11:00,761 --> 00:11:02,514
and working together for peace,

228
00:11:02,514 --> 00:11:03,776
he overcame his hate.

229
00:11:05,845 --> 00:11:10,326
Bassam says he still
doesn't hate Israelis,

230
00:11:10,326 --> 00:11:15,322
even after the Israeli military shot
and killed his 10-year-old daughter,

231
00:11:15,322 --> 00:11:16,320
Abir,

232
00:11:16,320 --> 00:11:17,874
while she was walking to school.

233
00:11:22,498 --> 00:11:25,261
Bassam even forgave the soldier
who killed his daughter.

234
00:11:26,505 --> 00:11:27,513
That soldier,

235
00:11:27,513 --> 00:11:30,141
he taught me,

236
00:11:30,141 --> 00:11:34,573
was just a product of the same
hateful system as he was.

237
00:11:39,682 --> 00:11:44,225
If a former terrorist --

238
00:11:44,225 --> 00:11:48,569
if a terrorist can learn to stop hating

239
00:11:48,569 --> 00:11:50,727
and still not hate
when their child is killed,

240
00:11:50,727 --> 00:11:54,717
surely the rest of us can stop our habits

241
00:11:54,717 --> 00:11:56,942
of demeaning and
dehumanizing each other.

242
00:11:57,303 --> 00:12:00,637
And I will tell you there are stories
like Bassam's all over the world,

243
00:12:00,637 --> 00:12:02,622
plus study after study after study

244
00:12:02,622 --> 00:12:07,833
that says, no, we are neither designed
nor destined as human beings to hate,

245
00:12:07,833 --> 00:12:11,111
but rather taught to hate
by the world around us.

246
00:12:11,449 --> 00:12:12,790
I promise you,

247
00:12:12,790 --> 00:12:16,018
none of us pops out of the womb
hating black people or Republicans.

248
00:12:16,270 --> 00:12:21,016
There is nothing in our DNA
that makes us hate Muslims or Mexicans.

249
00:12:21,632 --> 00:12:22,857
For better or for worse,

250
00:12:22,857 --> 00:12:26,409
we are all a product
of the culture around us.

251
00:12:27,918 --> 00:12:29,959
And the good news is

252
00:12:29,959 --> 00:12:34,139
we're also the ones
who shape that culture,

253
00:12:34,139 --> 00:12:35,731
which means we can change it.

254
00:12:36,844 --> 00:12:42,267
The first step is starting to recognize
the hate inside ourselves.

255
00:12:42,267 --> 00:12:43,772
We need to catch ourselves

256
00:12:43,772 --> 00:12:46,277
and our hateful thoughts
in all their forms

257
00:12:46,277 --> 00:12:49,556
in all of us,

258
00:12:49,556 --> 00:12:51,948
and work to challenge
our ideas and assumptions.

259
00:12:51,948 --> 00:12:53,418
That doesn't happen overnight,

260
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I am telling you right here,

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it is a lifelong journey

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but it's one we all need to take.

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And then second:

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if we want to challenge
the hate in our societies,

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we need to promote policies
and institutions and practices

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that connect us as communities.

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Literally, like integrative
neighborhoods and schools.

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That by the way is the reason
to support integration.


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Not just because
it's the right thing to do,

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but because integration
systematically combats hate.

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There are studies
that teenagers who participate

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in racially integrated classes
and activities reduce their racial bias.

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And when little kids go to racially
integrated kindergartens

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and elementary schools,

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they develop less bias to begin with.

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But the fact is in so many ways
and in so many places around our world,

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we are separated from each other.

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00:13:44,868 --> 00:13:47,123
In the United States for instance,

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00:13:47,123 --> 00:13:51,721
three-quarters of white people
don't have any non-white friends.

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So in addition to promoting
those proactive solutions,

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the other thing we need to do
is upend the hate in our institutions

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and our policies

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that perpetuate dehumanization

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and difference

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and otherizing

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00:14:07,880 --> 00:14:08,802
and hate,

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like systems of sexual harassment

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and sexual assault in the workplace,

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or our deeply, racially imbalanced

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00:14:18,833 --> 00:14:22,204
and deeply racially biased
criminal "justice" system.

291
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We need to change that.

292
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Again, it will not happen overnight.

293
00:14:26,488 --> 00:14:28,438
It needs to happen.

294
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And then ...

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when we connect together

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in these connection spaces,

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faciliated by connection systems,

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we need to change the way
we talk to each other

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and connect with one antoher

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and relate with generosity
and open-mindedness

301
00:14:53,926 --> 00:14:55,440
and kindness and compassion

302
00:14:55,440 --> 00:14:56,623
and not hate.

303
00:14:57,853 --> 00:14:58,850
And that's it.

304
00:14:59,451 --> 00:15:00,451
That's it.

305
00:15:00,770 --> 00:15:04,826
(Applause)

306
00:15:05,154 --> 00:15:06,670
I have solved it all, right?

307
00:15:06,900 --> 00:15:07,904
That's it.

308
00:15:07,904 --> 00:15:08,976
That is pretty much --

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00:15:08,976 --> 00:15:10,128
there's a few details --

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but that's pretty much all we have to do.

311
00:15:12,101 --> 00:15:13,824
It's not that complicated, right?

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But it's hard.

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00:15:18,625 --> 00:15:24,077
The hate that we feel
towards certain groups of people

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00:15:24,077 --> 00:15:26,948
because of who they are
or what they believe

315
00:15:26,948 --> 00:15:30,306
is so ingrained in our minds
and in our society

316
00:15:30,306 --> 00:15:33,262
that it can feel inevitable

317
00:15:33,262 --> 00:15:34,708
and impossible to change.

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00:15:37,457 --> 00:15:38,841
Change is possible.

319
00:15:41,236 --> 00:15:46,259
Just look at the terrorist
who became a peace activist.

320
00:15:47,603 --> 00:15:52,916
Or look at the bully who learned
to apologize to her victim.

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00:15:55,481 --> 00:15:59,538
The entire time I was traveling
around the Middle East

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00:15:59,538 --> 00:16:00,717
and Rwanda

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00:16:00,717 --> 00:16:02,115
and across the United States,

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00:16:02,115 --> 00:16:06,233
hearing these unbelievable stories
of people in communities

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00:16:06,233 --> 00:16:08,939
who had left entire histories
of hate behind,

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00:16:08,939 --> 00:16:10,396
I was still looking for Vicky.

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00:16:11,031 --> 00:16:14,191
It was so hard find her in fact
that I hired a private investigator

328
00:16:14,191 --> 00:16:15,188
and he found her.

329
00:16:15,344 --> 00:16:17,108
I mean, he sort of found her.

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00:16:17,414 --> 00:16:18,638
The truth is,

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00:16:18,638 --> 00:16:19,640
it became clear

332
00:16:19,640 --> 00:16:24,651
that the person I'm calling Vicky
had gone to extraordinary lengths

333
00:16:24,651 --> 00:16:26,832
to hide her identity.

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00:16:28,715 --> 00:16:30,017
But anyway,

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00:16:30,017 --> 00:16:34,683
a year after I began my journey,

336
00:16:34,683 --> 00:16:36,179
I wrote Vicky an apology.

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00:16:38,311 --> 00:16:40,600
And a few months later,

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00:16:40,600 --> 00:16:41,715
she wrote back.

339
00:16:45,209 --> 00:16:47,761
I'm not going to lie,

340
00:16:47,761 --> 00:16:49,052
I wanted to be forgiven.

341
00:16:53,192 --> 00:16:54,194
I wasn't.

342
00:16:56,061 --> 00:16:58,720
She offered me sort of
conditional forgiveness.

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00:16:59,171 --> 00:17:01,357
What she wrote was,

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00:17:01,357 --> 00:17:06,024
"Messages such as yours
cannot absolve you of your past actions.

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00:17:07,026 --> 00:17:10,345
The only way to do that
is to improve the world,

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00:17:10,345 --> 00:17:14,260
prevent others
from behaving in similar ways

347
00:17:14,260 --> 00:17:15,769
and foster compassion."

348
00:17:17,905 --> 00:17:19,200
And Vicky's right.

349
00:17:21,633 --> 00:17:22,983
Which is why I'm here.

350
00:17:23,705 --> 00:17:24,705
Thank you.

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00:17:25,090 --> 00:17:28,017
(Applause)