0:00:01.060,0:00:03.190
Growing up, I didn't always [br]understand why

0:00:03.190,0:00:06.225
my parents made me follow[br]the rules that they did.

0:00:06.225,0:00:09.025
Like, why did I really [br]have to mow the lawn?

0:00:09.025,0:00:11.643
Why was homework really that important?

0:00:11.643,0:00:15.267
Why couldn't I put jelly beans [br]in my oatmeal?

0:00:15.267,0:00:18.123
My childhood was abound[br]with questions like this.

0:00:18.123,0:00:20.579
Normal things about being a kid

0:00:20.579,0:00:22.276
and realizing that sometimes,

0:00:22.276,0:00:24.188
it was best to listen to my parents

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even when I didn't exactly understand why.

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And it's not that they didn't want[br]me to think critically.

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Their parenting always sought [br]to reconcile the tension

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between having my siblings and I[br]understand the realities of the world,

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while ensuring that we never accepted[br]the status quo as inevitable.

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I came to realize that this,[br]in and of itself,

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was a very purposeful form of education.

0:00:46.050,0:00:47.618
One of my favorite educators,

0:00:47.618,0:00:50.390
Brazilian author and scholar Paulo Freire,

0:00:50.390,0:00:53.839
speaks quiete explicitly about the need[br]for edcuation to be used

0:00:53.839,0:00:56.097
as a tool for critical awakening

0:00:56.097,0:00:57.946
and shared humanity.

0:00:57.946,0:00:59.410
In his most famous book,

0:00:59.410,0:01:01.142
"Pedagogy of the Oppresed",

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he states, "No one can be [br]authentically human

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while he prevents others from being so."

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I've been thinking a lot [br]about this lately,

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this idea of humanity,

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and specifically, who in this world[br]is afforded the privilege

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of being perceived as fully human.

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Over the course of [br]the past several months,

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the world has watched as [br]unarmed black men, and women,

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have had their lives taken at the hands[br]of the police and vigilante.

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These events and all that [br]has transpired after them

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have brought me back to my own childhood

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and the decisions that[br]my parents made about

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about raising a black boy in America

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that growing up, I didn't always[br]understand

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in the way that I do now.[br]

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I think of how hard it must have been,

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how profoundly unfair it must have felt

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for them to feel like [br]they had to strip away

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parts of my childhood

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just so that I could come home at night.

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For example, I think of how one night,

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when I was around 12-years-old[br]on an overnight field trip

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to another city,

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my friends and I bought Super Soakers

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and turned the hotel parking lot[br]into our own

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into our own water-filled battle zone.

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We hid behind cars,

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running through the darkness that[br]laid between the streetlights,

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boundless laughter ubiquitous [br]across the pavement.

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But within ten minutes,

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my father came outside,

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grabbed my by my forearm

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and lead me unto our room[br]with an unfamiliar grip.

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Before I could say anything,

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tell him how foolish he had [br]made me look in front of my friends,

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he derided me for being so naive.

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Looked me in the eye,

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fear consuming his face,

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and said, "Son, I'm sorry,

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but you can't act the same [br]as your white friends.

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You can't pretend to shoot guns.

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You can't run around in the dark.

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You can't hide behind anything[br]other than your own teeth."

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I know now how scared he must have been,

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how easily I could have fallen[br]into the empty of the night,

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that some man would mistake this water

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for a good reason to wash[br]all of this away.

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These are the sorts of messages[br]I've been inundated with

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my entire life:[br]

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always keep your hands where[br]they can see them,

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don't move too quickly,

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take off your hood when the sun goes down.

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My parents raised me and my siblings[br]in an armor of advice,

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an ocean of alarm bells so someone[br]wouldn't steal the breath from our lungs,

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so that they wouldn't make[br]a memory of this skin.

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So that we could be kids,

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not casket or concrete.

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And it's not because they thought it[br]would make us better than anyone else

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it's simply because they wanted [br]to keep us alive.

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All of my black friends were raised[br]with the same message:

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the talk, given to us when we[br]were old enough

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to be mistaken for a nail ready[br]to be hammered to the ground,

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when people made our melanin[br]synonymous with something to be feared.

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But what does it do to a child,

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to grow up knowing that you[br]cannot simply be a child?

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That the whims of adolescence[br]are too dangerous for your breath,

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that you cannot simply be curious,

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that you are not afforded the luxury[br]of making a mistake,

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that someone's implicit bias [br]might be the reason

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you don't wake up in the morning.[br]

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But this cannot be what defines us.

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Because we have parents that [br]raised us to understand

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that our bodies weren't meant[br]for the backside of a bullet,

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but for flying kites and jumping rope

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and laughing until our stomachs burst.

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We had teachers who taught us[br]how to raise our hands

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in class, and not just [br]to signal surrender

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and that the only thing[br]we should give up

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is the idea that we aren't worthy[br]of this world.

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So when we say that black lives matter,

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it's not because others don't,

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it's simply because we must affirm[br]that we are worthy

0:04:23.261,0:04:24.772
of existing without fear

0:04:24.772,0:04:26.877
when so many things [br]tell us that we are not.

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I want to live in a world where my son[br]will not be presumed "guilty"

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the moment he is born,

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where a toy in his hand is not mistaken[br]for anything other than a toy.

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And I refuse to accept that we can't[br]build this world into something new,

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some place where a child's name [br]doesn't have to be

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written on a t-shirt or a tombstone,

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where the value of someone's life[br]isn't determined

0:04:45.013,0:04:48.563
by anything other than the fact[br]that they had lungs,

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a place where every single one [br]of us can breathe.

0:04:52.651,0:04:53.445
Thank you.

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(Applause)