0:00:00.890,0:00:03.190
Growing up, I didn't always understand

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why my parents made me[br]follow the rules that they did.

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Like, why did I really [br]have to mow the lawn?

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Why was homework really that important?

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Why couldn't I put jelly beans [br]in my oatmeal?

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My childhood was abound[br]with questions like this.

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Normal things about being a kid[br]and realizing that sometimes,

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it was best to listen to my parents[br]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.

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One of my favorite educators,[br]Brazilian author and scholar Paulo Freire,

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speaks quite explicitly[br]about the need for education

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to be used as a tool for critical [br]awakening and shared humanity.

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In his most famous book,[br]"Pedagogy of the Oppressed,"

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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 about this [br]lately, 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[br]as unarmed black men, and women,

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have had their lives taken[br]at the hands of 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 my parents made[br]about raising a black boy in America

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that growing up, I didn't always[br]understand in the way that I do now.

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I think of how hard it must have been,[br]how profoundly unfair it must have felt

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for them to feel like they had [br]to strip away 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, on an[br]overnight field trip 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 water-filled battle zone.

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We hid behind cars,

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

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boundless laughter ubiquitous [br]across the pavement.

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But within 10 minutes,

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my father came outside, [br]grabbed me by my forearm

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and led me into 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, [br]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 I've been[br]inundated with my entire life:

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Always keep your hands where they [br]can see them, 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, [br]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 [br]when we became 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

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

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But this cannot be what defines us.

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Because we have parents[br]who 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,[br]and laughing until our stomachs burst.

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

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and not just to signal surrender,

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and that the only thing we should give up

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

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So when we say that black lives matter,[br]it's not because others don't,

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it's simply because we must affirm that we[br]are worthy of existing without fear,

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when so many things tell us we are not.

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I want to live in a world where my son

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will not be presumed guilty[br]the moment he is born,

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where a toy in his hand isn't 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

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doesn't have to be written [br]on a t-shirt, or a tombstone,

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where the value of someone's life

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isn't determined by anything other [br]than the fact that they had lungs,

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

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Thank you.

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(Applause)