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The beauty of human skin in every color

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    It has been 128 years since the last
    country in the world abolished slavery.
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    And 53 years since Martin Luther King
    pronounced his "I Have A Dream" speech.
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    But we still live in a world
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    where the color of our skin not only
    gives a first impression,
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    but a lasting one that remains.
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    I was born in a family full of colors.
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    My father is the son of a maid
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    from whom he inherited an intense,
    dark, chocolate tone.
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    He was adopted by those who
    I know as my grandparents.
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    The matriarch, my grandma, has
    a porcelain skin and a cotton-like hair.
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    My grandpa was somewhere between
    a vanilla and strawberry yogurt tone,
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    like my uncle and my cousin.
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    My mother is a cinnamon skin
    daughter of a native Brazilian,
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    with a pinch of hazel and honey.
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    [....but with a lot of coffee]
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    She has two sisters.
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    One in a toasted peanut skin
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    and the other,
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    also adopted,
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    more on the beige side, like a pancake.
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    (Laughter)
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    Growing up in this family,
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    color was never important for me.
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    Outside home however,
    things were different soon.
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    Color had many other meanings.
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    I remember my first
    drawing lessons in school
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    as a bunch of contradictory fill-ins.
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    It was exciting and creative
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    but I never understood
    the unique flesh color [fancied?]
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    I was made of flesh but I wasn't pink,
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    my skin was brown and
    people said I was black.
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    I was seven years old
    with a mess of colors in my head.
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    Later,
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    when I took my cousin to school,
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    I was usually taken for the nanny.
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    By helping in the kitchen
    at a friend's party,
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    people thought I was the maid.
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    I was even treated as a prostitute
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    just because I was walking alone
    on the beach with European friends.
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    And many times,
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    visiting my grandma or friends
    in upper class buildings,
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    I was invited not to use the main elevator
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    because in the end,
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    with this color and this hair,
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    I cannot belong to some places.
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    In some way,
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    I get to use it and accept part of it,
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    however something inside of me
    keeps revolving and struggling.
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    Years later I married a Spaniard.
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    But not an [Espaniard?]
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    I chose one with the skin
    color of a lobster [when...]
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    Since of then, a new question
    started to chase me.
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    What will be the color of your children?
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    As you can understand,
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    this is my last concern.
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    But thinking about it,
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    with my previous background,
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    my story led me to make my personal
    exercise as a photographer.
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    And that is how Humanae was born.
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    Humanae is a pursuit
    to highlight our true colors.
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    [Redder, the untrue] --
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    white, red, black or yellow
    associated with race.
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    It's a kind of game to question our codes.
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    It's a work in progress from a personal
    story to a global history.
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    I portray the subjects
    in a white background.
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    Then I choose 11 pixels
    [square] from the nose,
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    paint the background,
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    and look for the corresponding color
    in the industrial palette Pantone.
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    I started with my family and friends,
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    then more and more people
    joined the [ ]
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    thanks to public cause
    coming to the social media.
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    I thought that the main space
    to show my work was the Internet
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    because I want an open concept
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    that invites everybody
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    to push the share button in both
    the computer and their brain.
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    The slow ball started to roll.
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    The project had a great welcome --
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    invitations, exhibitions,
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    physical [form ...]
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    galleries and museums ...
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    just happened.
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    And among them,
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    my favorite.
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    When Humanae occupies public spaces
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    and appears in the street,
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    it fosters a popular debate
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    and creates a feeling of community.
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    I have portrayed more than 3,000 people
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    in 13 different counties, 19 different
    cities around the world.
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    Just to mention some of them --
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    from someone included in the Forbes List,
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    to refugees who crossed
    the Mediterranean by boat.
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    In Paris, from the UNESCO
    Headquarters to a shelter.
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    And students both in Switzerland
    and favelas in Rio de Janeiro.
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    All kinds of beliefs,
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    gender identities
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    or physical impairments,
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    a newborn or terminally ill.
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    We all together build Humanae.
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    Those portrayed make us rethink
    how we see each other.
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    When modern science is
    questioning the race concept,
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    what does it mean for us to be
    black, white, yellow, red?
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    Is is the eye, the nose,
    the mouth, the hair,
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    or does it have to do with our origin,
    nationality or bank account?
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    This personal exercise turned
    out to be a [discovery].
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    Suddenly I realized that Humane
    was useful for many people.
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    It represents a sort of mirror
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    for those who cannot find
    themselves reflected in any label.
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    It was amazing
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    that people started to share
    their thoughts about the work with me.
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    I have hundreds of [that],
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    I will share with you, too.
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    I mother of an 11-year-old girl wrote me,
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    "Very good for me as I continue
    to work on her confidence.
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    As this past weekend,
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    one of her girlfriend's argued with her
    that she does not belong
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    and should not be allowed
    to live in Norway.
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    So you're work as a very special
    place in my heart,
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    and it's very important for me."
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    A woman shared her portrait
    on Facebook and wrote,
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    "All my life,
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    people from across the globe
    had difficulties to place me in a group,
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    a stereotype --
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    a box.
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    Perhaps we should stop.
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    Instead of framing, ask the individual,
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    'How would you label yourself?'
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    Then I would say,
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    'Hi. I'm Marsielle. I'm a Domincan-Dutch,
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    I grew up in a mixed family
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    and I'm a bisexual woman.' "
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    Besides these unexpected,
    in-touch reactions,
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    Humanae finds new life
    in a different variety of fields.
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    Just to show you some examples,
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    illustrators and art students
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    using it as a reference for their
    sketches and their studies.
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    It's a collection of faces.
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    Researchers in the fields of anthropology,
    physicists, [animal] science,
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    use Humanae with different
    scientific approaches
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    related to human ethnicity,
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    optophysiology,
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    face recoginition,
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    or [....]
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    One of the most important
    impacts of the project
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    is that Humane was chosen
    to be to cover of Foreign Affairs,
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    one of the most relevant,
    political publications.
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    And talking about Foreign Affairs,
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    I found the perfect
    ambassadors for my project:
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    teachers.
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    They are the ones that use Humanae
    as a tool for educational purposes.
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    Their passion encourages me
    to go back to drawing classes,
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    but this time as a teacher myself.
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    My students,
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    both adults and kids,
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    paint their self-portrait
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    trying to discover their own
    and unique color.
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    As a photographer,
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    I realize that I can be a channel
    for others to communicate.
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    As the individual,
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    as Angélica,
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    every time I take a picture,
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    I feel that I am sitting
    in front of a therapist.
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    All the frustration, fear and loneliness
    that I once felt ...
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    becomes love.
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    The last country in the world
    who abolished slaverly
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    is the country where I was born.
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    Brazil.
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    We still have to work hard
    to abolish discrimination.
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    That remains a common practice world-wide,
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    and that will not disappear by itself.
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    Thank you.
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    (Applause)
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    Thank you.
Title:
The beauty of human skin in every color
Speaker:
Angélica Dass
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
11:27
  • At 7.13 I think it should be "I will share with you TWO" instead of "I will share with you, too.". It makes way more sense, especially considering what comes next.

  • don´t agree. The speaker wants to share the story with the audience, not with the mother and the daughter.

English subtitles

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