kevin: well, thank you. thank you. there's no podium andmy notes are over there, so i'll be walking over there alittle bit, is that all right? i just want to say, thankyou for having me here.
Jersey City Board Of Education, it's great to be atportland community college. give yourselves a round of applause. i did write down some things. so it's important tome to thank people.
miss shelly, miss [inaudible],, canyou give them a round of applause, please? southeast multicultural center,the women's resource center, associated students of portlandcommunity college, the office of equity and inclusion-- are you miss [? brand? ?] no? the southeast diversity council,pcc links programs, dan, thank you. i'm humbled by your wordsand the introduction, and just thank youall for being here.
students, community faculty staff,where the students at out there? make some noise if you're a student. there is so much on my mind. the sign language community aswell, thank you for being here. so much on my mind. i'd like to start the way iusually start which is, can we all agree that we're all part of thishuman family-- this human race car? that we're all sisters and brothers? we're all in this together?
can we agree to that? because as i was preparing tocome here, i turned on the tv, and i was watching thenews, and there was melissa mccarthy and sean spicer. anyone see saturdaynight live on saturday? wasn't that incredible? melissa is a rock star. i've always loved her, but she justtook it to a whole other level. it's one of the bestsketches i've ever
seen in the history ofsaturday night live. but they were showing spicer, thereal life white house spokesperson, giving some updates. the harsh reality is-- let me say this, idon't care if you're a liberal, or conservative,democrat, republican, independent, however you identify yourselvespolitically-- political spectrum. i've been meeting with alot of folks that are as diverse as the folks in this room.
the last couple ofweeks in new york-- i'm from new york city,but i grew up in jersey so i've definitely got toshout out jersey and new york, and it's clear to me that we'vegot some serious times ahead of us, and it's clear that everysingle nominee of mr trump is going to get through. it's just going to happen. in fact, wolf blitzer asked anexpert, is this going to happen. he said, absolutely, and if anyonehas studied politics the way
i've studied politics-- i was a political science major-- rutgers university-- way back in theday, during the reagan-bush years. this always happens. it always happens. and so for me, wheni think about, what do we do now where we are inamerica and the age of trump? one thing i want us to not forgetis that everyone in this room-- just look around--people in this room--
every single person in this room hasbeen through some sort of adversity in their lives. am i right, y'all? or you have familymembers who've been through some sort of adversity. it may be because of race. it may be because ofgender, or gender identity, or class, or yourreligion, or the fact that you may beagnostic, or atheistic,
or your ability, or disability. y'all with me out there? we've all had some sort oftrials and tribulations, and so i keep that in perspectivewhen i think about people saying how scared they are. how shocked they are, even acouple months after the election, and not knowing what'sgoing to happen. i say to y'all, don't forget thatwe've been through a lot of stuff, and if we just look atour own family histories,
or the histories of our communitiesin places like portland, oregon or new yorkcity, where i live now, understand thatanything is possible. but what it's going to take morethan ever is that word love. can y'all say love? and people comingtogether as communities. are you with me out there? this is very serious. how y'all doing?
peace to y'all, peace. so i just wanted to start therebecause it's so clear that we've got folks that are tripping. for folks who are coming in-- and there are seats up fronttoo right there there's like six of them, and six of y'all. that's perfect. right on. hey, so we got a football player,a band member, and basketball.
so we're talking about where weare in the country right now, and there's hate out there. there's division. there's violence. i'm watching this pressconference, mr. sean spencer, and he kept talkingabout all the stuff that we're trying tokeep out of the country. y'all know what i'm talking about. and i'm saying to myself,as a new yorker who
knows two people who died on 9/11-- and many of us were affected by 9/11all over the country, obviously-- i'm saying to myself becausei'm also student of facts-- remember that thing, facts? not alternative facts,just basic facts. proper research. anyone who's over 30,y'all are with me. when we were growing up, therewas something called microfiche. there is somethingcalled the library.
that's right acrossthe way on this campus. there's something calledencyclopedias, and books. little things like that. remember those things? it's amazing, right, if we use them? and so i'm thinkingto myself, ok, you're going to ban people who aremuslim from these countries, but the people who created the 9/11havoc were from these countries. and so i'm saying, ok, that's one.
the number two, i'm a christian now. i live in a city innew york city that has a huge muslim population,huge jewish population, folks who are hindu, rastafarian,yoruba, all kinds of faith. people who are agnostic,atheistic, we're a nation of many faiths orbeliefs, and i'll say to myself, we're acting like muslim sistersand brothers just popped up here. because it's alsoblack history month which was created by carterg. woodson in 1926 as negro
history week. he was a great scholar of blackamerican and american history. carter g woodson. he didn't get his high schooldiploma until he was in his 20s, y'all. community colleges, this iswhy y'all are so valuable, because you givepeople an opportunity-- no matter how young or how old-- to get an education.
are y'all with me out there? and carter g woodson would study,because he lived in west virginia, to a kerosene lamp, and thenhe went on to get a phd, and he realized, wait a minute. a lot of folks, myself included,don't know basic american history, and we don't knowblack american history, or latino american history,or native american history, or jewish american history,or irish american history, y'all follow me for a second?
filipino history, women's history,queer history, should i go on? disabled history. we don't know a lotabout all the people who make this place called america. so he created negrohistory week in 1926, because two people whoare important to american and black american history wereborn in the month of february. not because it wasthe shortest month. they were born in february.
one of the people born in februarywas just cited by mr. trump last week because he's still alive. he's like over 200 years old now. he's like biblical years. his name is frederick douglass. he was, like barackobama, a biracial man. half black, halfwhite, but he was born into slavery, and during his yearsof slavery-- read the narrative of frederick douglass.
one of the bestautobiographies ever written. during his time of slavery, helearned how to read and write. education, college students. he became empowered bywhat he was learning, and he realized, i deserveto be free, not a slave, are ya'll with me out there? he escaped from slavery. in fact, in new york city,where i live, not far from where 9/11 happenedtragically, there's
actually a marker where frederickdouglass came into new york city at one point. of my friends who i went to collegewith-- look it up, named ted hamm-- just published a book, the brooklynspeeches of frederick douglass. i had no idea he gave speechesin brooklyn, new york. he was born in february. well, who else was born in february? there was a man named abrahamlincoln, the 16th president of this country, who grappled--
oh my gosh. and it says portlandcommunity college. can i just respectfully ask anyonewho's videotaping with their phones not to. this is for your school,what's being done back there, and can we all just share that copythat'll be on your youtube page, ok, are we good? so abraham lincoln. abraham lincoln wasborn in february.
some of us, when we weregrowing up, anyone over 30, remember when we wouldcelebrate washington's birthday and lincoln's birthday? and then someonedecided, let's just call it president's day in february,but that's where it came from. both washington and lincolnwere born in february. and so here we are, lincolnemancipation proclamation freed the slaves. back then, republicanswere very different--
lincoln was a republican-- then what they are now. back then, most blackfolks were republicans because of abraham lincoln. it wasn't until 1932when a man named franklin delano roosevelt,a disabled brother, ran for presidentof the united states in the middle ofthe great depression that people started toswitch, or move over,
to what became the modern democraticparty, are ya'll with me out there? history, as malcolm x said-- malcolm x, malcolm x,read the autobiography of malcolm x. you wantto learn about america from a perspective of folksthat are different than you? the america we shouldall know about? read the autobiography ofmalcolm x. but this is why carter g. woodson picked february. it was called negro history week,and because of the civil rights
movement in the '50s and '60s,we switched from negro to black because it's important todefine yourself for yourself. never let people tell you who youare, you tell them who you are, and it was expanded to a fullmonth, black history month. and it's not just for black people,black history is american history. spirituals, blues, jazz, rockand roll, soul, hip hop, hip hop, hip hop, son, i'm ahip hop head for life. you can't talk about americanmusic without talking about the amazingcontributions of black people.
you can't talk aboutdriving in a car, and stopping at a trafficlight without acknowledging a black man namedgarrett morgan, who is from ohio, who patented what wenow call the modern traffic light. red is for stop, yellow is forwait, green is for go, look him up. he also invented the gasmask. a black man, you know what i mean? oh yeah, look it up. it's out there.
and so that's the challenge for us. i can't speak foranyone else, but i've been blessed to visit all50 states in this country. i didn't get on a planeuntil i was 24 years old. i didn't know thatyou could go anywhere. i knew about greyhoundbuses and amtrak, and what i'm saying to y'all,when you start to travel, when you start to study, when youstart to read in a different kind of way, your mind expands.
your mind expands. and you start to askyourself a question. because i don't think we can talkabout racism or sexism or classism or homophobia or transphobiaor religious hatred or reckless disregard and disrespectfor disabled sisters and brothers if we don't ask a fundamentalquestion, who am i? who am i? and where did i getthis identity from? well for me, my familyis from the south.
south carolina. we're from the area of thesouth called the lowcountry. there's a movie thatcame out 25 years ago called daughters of the dust. look the movie up bya great filmmaker, a black woman namedjulie dash, and it's about this blackcommunity in the south that spoke this kind of patwa, justlike we hear in the philippines. just like we hear in the caribbean.
a certain kind of dialect wheretheir traditional tongue was actually doing war with thelanguage that was put on them, ya'll know what i'm talking about? my family comes from there. my mother was born in the 1940s inthe middle of world war ii, 1943, and she grew up in a world-- and i was just with her the otherday, she's now 73 years old-- there was for colored onlysigns and for whites only signs. we are not going to deal withthe issue of race and racism
in this country if we,as american people, are not willing to havehonest conversations once and for all about race andracism in this country, you know what i mean. and when we talk about thehistory from our perspective-- anyone out there italian or irish? got an italian or irishbrother out there anybody? look at all those hands. think of how people who wereconsidered ethnic whites
were treated. irish people, italianpeople, go look at a movie by a great filmmakernamed martin scorsese-- gangs of new york--how the native whites were fighting and disrespecting theethnic whites, the foreign rights. let's get them out of here. let's exclude them. let's ban them. send them back towhere they came from.
let's put them in concentrationcamps, internment camps. let's enslave them. make them indentured servants, arey'all following me for a second? if i'm chinese-america, letme get them out of oregon. oregon. did i just say oregon? that's the new york inme, sorry, east coast. audience: you only get one. kevin: i only get one.
i am going to give the rest of myspeech to the sign language sister then. but my point is, this is not new. but if we don't know the history,we repeat it over and over again. so my mother grew up in the south,and when she was eight years old and her sisters-- it wasfour girls and one boy and a father motherin a two room shack. i want y'all to imaginethis for a second. they were dirt poor.
my grandfather could read ona second or third grade level. so if you are a student hereat portland community college, or you haven't already havea degree or two or three, you have a better education thanpeople in a lot of our families. do not take that for granted. and so when i see people cometo community colleges or harvard university-- because portlandcommunity college and harvard are equal in my eyes-- do not take for granted theopportunity that you got.
but you're not just goingto school for yourself, you're going to schoolfor all the people. my grandfather, secondor third grade level. my grandmother couldnot read or write. my mama has a gradeschool education. why does she have agreat school education? because of the racism, thesexism, and the classism of being a poor black woman in america. she was perceivedto be, and seen only
as the help even as a little girl. go pick that cottonwhich is what she did. go work in the homes ofwell-to-do, wealthy white sisters and brothers which she did. and if we have eyes of privilege--let's call it eyes of privilege, can we do that brother? eyes of privilege-- we don'tsee the humanity in people. and so we start to refer to peopleas ghetto, and hood, and trailer trash, and poor white trash,and aliens, and illegal aliens,
and not as human beings,are ya'll with me out there? you know what i mean? we can really put labels on people. we see the world witheyes of privilege. we don't respect the assistantsor secretaries on this campus. we don't speak to the securityworkers on this campus. we don't respect the folkswho clean up this campus, his humanity is theequal of my humanity. i'm not better than him.
we are fellow humanbeings, am i right? for people to see my mommalike that and her sisters-- and so they were forced when theywere young women, because they were like there's no way. there's no way we're goingto stay in this environment where because of theracism, and the sexism, and the classism all colliding. and you want to talkabout intersectionality-- which is all over college campuses--
then y'all need to study the historyof women of color in this country, you know what i mean? asian women, latino women, blackwomen, native american women, middle eastern women,you know i mean. working class white sisters as well. they moved up northlooking for a better life. they were so poor down south. my mother told me many times-- because black folks tell thesame stories over and over again,
just like every other group. they'll be like, youheard this story before, but i'm going to say it again. come on, it's thanksgiving. let's talk some stories,and they were so poor the only meal they had, theywould pour some syrup in a bowl, and they would pass it around. father-mother, four girls, a boy. think about that for a second.
two room shack. there was somethingcalled an outhouse. they didn't have electricity ora bathroom inside their home, y'all with me out there? when i hear people say,well, i want to go overseas and see how people are suffering. i mean you could see how people arestruggling right here in america. right here in the state of oregon. that doesn't mean that we shouldn'tsupport people everywhere.
my heart is whereverpeople are suffering. they were so poorthe girls would take turns going to school because therewas one dress that they shared, and then this is wherethe sexism kicks in. fellas, men there? i said it was one boy. none of the girls got to finishgrade school or high school. the boy got a highschool diploma because he was favored because he was a boy.
sexism, patriarchy, misogyny,y'all know what i'm talking about? somehow his life is more importantthan the girl's life, this boy. my mother moves up north. she gets up there. she's so disconnected from theworld outside of black and white-- colored and white-- the first week she got tothe north, the new york area, she thought there wasan outer space invasion. why did she think that?
because it was february,1964, and people kept saying, the beatles are coming. and my mother was like, whatthe heck are the beatles? well now we know, right? they were from outer space. they're from england. our cousins from england. i love the uk, seriously. she's so poor still.
they're now the help becausewhat skill sets did they have? they had to work in thehomes of wealthy people. you want to talk aboutintersectionality. one of the stories my mother toldme that i share in my memoir that's back there is how my motherwas working in the home of a wealthy white family. the male figure wasthere with my mother. one day, he just sits down witha robe on, and he opens his legs, and there's his private parts.
and so when we're repulsed by mr.trump saying grab them by their-- we need to understand people havebeen saying that, and doing that forever. because just like thiscountry was founded on racism, the founding fathers were rich,privileged, white male landowners. they weren't talkingabout black people. they weren't talkingabout native americans. they weren't talking aboutwomen of any background, they weren't talking aboutworking class white people either.
look up shays' rebellion. those were the working classwhite brothers and sisters saying, wait a minute, what about us? what about us? well the country wasalso founded on sexism. all men are created equal,but what about the women? i mean let's think about thefact that it's been still less than 100 years sincewomen of any background have had the right tovote in this country.
you want to know why allthose women showed up in washington, and all over thecountry, and all over the world? because sisters, women arelike, enough, enough is enough. that was incredible. it was incredible. my mother and my twoaunts, who moved up north, shared a bed up north untilthey were able to get rooms. not apartments, rooms. then, eventually, mymother and my aunt cathy
shared an apartment together. that's how i grew up. one pair of shoes. one pair of sneakers. at some point in the middle ofall this, my mother met my father. back to sexism, my motherfell in love with my father. my father fell in lust withmy mother, and i was created. and my father didn't even have thedecency to show up at the hospital when i was born.
my mother literallyhad to call a cab to take herself to the hospital. let me make it veryclear i love being what we call identify as a man. i'm a man. i'm a dude, a boy. i am. but there's something wrongwith our definitions of manhood, if the only thing wecan view folks who
identify as women as our caretakersand sexual objects and nothing else. so now my mother is in the north. it's almost like she tookthe poverty from the south, and brought it up tothe north, and she's forced to raise me on welfare,food stamps, government cheese, and a kind of povertyi wouldn't wish on anybody. does that story soundfamiliar to anybody out there? single mothers, let's give thema round of applause, seriously.
and imagine this, it wasn't untili got to college on a financial aid package when i was 18 years old-- rutgers university, asi said, in new jersey-- i never had my own bedroom. i never had my own bed. the first eight or nine yearsof my life, my mother and i shared a bed in the bedroom. my aunt cathy and her son anthony,who was the same age as me because his father did thesame thing that my father did.
thank you and goodbye. they shared a bed. then when we were abouteight or nine years old, both our mothers got foldingbeds, and our folding beds were literally next to their beds. i mean, think about this for asecond and then at some point my mother and aunt cathy finallywe're able to afford separate one bedroom apartments , andnow my folding bed was in the living room just like mycousin anthony's was in the living
room. and then at some pointin our teenage years, we were finally able to affordthings we take for granted. maybe a sofa bed. this is where i come from. yeah, i've published 12 books. yeah, i've seen the country. yeah, i've been to fiveof the seven continents. yeah, i do stuff inthe media all the time.
yeah, my next book is aboutthe life of tupac shakur. yeah, but so what, if youforget where you come from? so what if you start to see theworld with eyes of privilege, and you ignore the humanityof people out there, are y'all with me out there? three things saved my life,and this is for the students, and this is really for everybody. one is called faith. can y'all say faith?
audience: faith. kevin: faith. that doesn't necessarily meansome dialectical conversation about god and organized religion. i believe in spirituality. even though i'm a christian,i believe in spirituality, not organized religion, because ifeel like organized religion has been used to harm a lot of people. and i belong in two churches,and i've also, for the record,
been a muslim in mylifetime as well which is why i'm very sensitive to peopledisrespecting folks who are muslim. and i live in a city that has thebiggest jewish population outside of state of israel, new york city. so i'm very sensitiveto anti-semitism, but faith means--what did dr. king say? even if you can't see thestairs, you go forward anyway. you've got to believe in yourself. when the new england patriots, whoi cannot stand because i'm from new
york. new york sports fans don'trock with boston sports fans. it's a historical thing,but when it was 28-3-- anyone watch the super bowl? i'm sitting there talking madtrash like, man, tom brady going get that fifth ring. bill belichick? he looks really mad now. but those 53 players and thatcoaching staff had faith,
and they won that game. and i can't fronthim, this is amazing. if you believe in yourself,you can overcome anything. well, look what i come from. my mother had faith thatanything was possible. how far was it mymother went in school? grade school. but from the time of three or fouryears old as she was raising me, this woman, who does not readany books other than bits
and pieces of the bible, whoonly read the local newspapers, said to me over and overagain, you're going to college. you're going to college. because she understoodi got to go further, as she always said to me,then she ever went in school. which led to the second thingthat saved my life, education. students, reading, writing,and arithmetic, the basics. do not take it for granted,the ability to learn. as much as i love this littlething called an iphone,
you can't allow this tobe the way you learn. there's something remarkable, ican't speak for y'all, but when i come to portland, which is often,and i drive pass or walk past powell's bookstore, i get excited. not because it's my last name buti support independent bookstores, and the store is massiveand has books of all kinds, and it takes me back towhen i was eight years old. my mama with the grade schooleducation would save my life. faith, number one,education, number two.
let me take this boy to the library. she let me roam allover the library. and what i always say to-- studentsout there, be honest with me. raise your hand if youdon't like to read books. no shame in it. how many of y'alldon't like to read? no shame. there's no-- can wesay no judgment, y'all? audience: no judgment.
kevin: and safe space? audience: safe space. kevin: even though it's goingto be on youtube, safe space? but what i'm getting at-- i go to a lot of places. i'll be at the portlandschool district on friday. i was here in november withthe portland school district. i would say half the studentsraised their hands at assembly. portland high school students.
half the students saidthey didn't like to read. know what they said? because it's boring. what did i read when i was a child? it's comic books. more important for me, sports. notice i referenced the super bowl? read books that you are-- readthings you're interested in first. develop your love of reading,and then expand beyond that.
does that make sense? you're not going toget a young person to read shakespeare if they think,wait a minute, this is old english. you know i mean. what is this? this is not the way i speak. who's this dude shakespeare anyway? but by the time igot to shakespeare, i had read hemingway andpoe and emily dickinson
and a whole bunch of otherstuff and i was like, ok, i can make my way to it. but i also found books that icould relate to like the outsiders. remember that book? s.c. hansen. about young people? this is me in a book. i feel this. does it make sense, y'all?
education saved my life. then the third thingthat saved my life. simple, my mother had a plan. go to college. you have to have a work ethic. students, you cannot doanything in life if you don't have a plan for your life. it's really basic. what's your plan, andif your plan changes--
i guarantee if you goback to the super bowl as a metaphor-- thefootball game is a metaphor. bill belichick. brady. the whole team. the patriots had a plan. hey, it's 28-3, we've got tofigure another plan out right now. but if you're prepared,and you have faith. if you're preparedand you have faith,
you can even adjuston the fly, your plan. but i want to go a littlebit deeper for a second. what is education? it's not just reading, writing,and arithmetic, the basics. we should know those things. we should master those things. when i graduated from highschool, i won a math award. i won an english award. i love trig, i lovecalculus, i love everything.
plus my mother was nottolerating bad grades. she was like, no, no, no. i mean she was my one personsupport system, my mother. but what i learned when i gotto college on the financial aid package was we hadno money for college. when i was in highschool, i literally had to fill out applications. my mother didn't know whatthe applications meant. i would just bringit to her and say,
mom, can you just sign on the x forpenn state, rutgers, syracuse, pace university, and here'sthe financial aid papers, can you just sign right here? that's how i got tocollege, but where did that determination came from? i got it from mymama, y'all feel me? you hear all those stories growingup about what she survived, you have no excuse. and so are we going totrip in the era of trump
if we hear these stories aboutwhat our mothers and grandmothers and grandfathers and uncles? if they can come through what theycame through, why we tripping? but education, i learned in college. i was like, man, i don't knowanything about black history. i get to college in the 1980s. there's this thing calledthe anti-apartheid movement. anyone remember that? they kept talking aboutsomeone named nelson
mandela that was in south africa. i was like, son, the newyork comes out of me. son, where is south africa at? i know about the southbronx which created hip hop. i know about south carolinawhere my people are from. south africa sounds mad far, andwho's this nelson mandela dude, and where's apartheid, andthen they explained it to me. they said, well, in southafrica they actually study some of the stuff thatwas going on in america.
how native americanswere treated in america, reservations, and moving peopleoff their land, y'all feel me? and also segregation and how peoplehad to walk around with id or they call passcodes, y'all feel me? and i said, oh, that's what'sgoing on in south africa. so that affected me, and then iread the autobiography of malcolm x because someone told me toread it, and i must say to you all no matter what you are-- irish, italian, german, polish,filipino, chinese, japanese,
vietnamese, whateveryour background is-- how can you call yourselfa human being, an american, if you can't even talkabout your family history beyond one generation? how'd you get here, or ifyou've been here all along-- as our indigenous brothersand sisters have been-- who are you? what are the languages? what's your culture?
does that make sense y'all? and i realized i knewnothing about myself. you know malcolm x? never heard of him. black history, when i wasgrowing up, k through 12, the best schools in jerseycity, new jersey, where i'm from might have totalled in those13 years two or three pages. that's it. the same stuff about rosa parks.
dr. king always having a dream. and i love dr. king, but that ihave a dream speech august 28, 1963, which was also the 20thbirthday of my mother. he lived five more years. what did he do after that? where was his vietnam warspeech at in my education? where was his poor people'scampaign in my education? he didn't say poorblacks or poor whites. he said poor people.
let's bring people togetherof different backgrounds. what dr. king was talking aboutin '67, '68, think about it. in the last presidentialelection, a lot of working class whitebrothers and sisters supported donald trump because hespoke to them a certain language. they were like, yeah and then you'vegot poor people over here of color saying, no, we can't get with that. and the poor people that dr.king wanted to bring together are fighting each other.
working class americans fightingeach other and meanwhile, a small percentage owns andcontrols everything, y'all feel me? but if we don't read, wedon't study, we don't travel, we don't know this stuff,and we get caught up in all the "isms" and divisions. i don't like this onebecause of their race, this one because oftheir gender identity, this one because of their religion,this one because of their class background, this onebecause of their ability,
this one because oftheir disability. fighting each other, doesthat make sense y'all? so i realized educationmeans i got to know who i am. i discovered the e-185section of library. the black students and everybodyshould write that down. the e-185 section of the library,that's where all the black books are, y'all. remember the dewey decimal system? it's wonderful.
e-185, that's where allthe black books are. why was that important? because i needed to know who i was. my history did notstart with slavery. africa-- go on huffingtonpost and other web sites-- africa, one of thecradles of civilization. like china, one of thecradles of civilization. like mexico, one of the cradlesof civilization, you know i mean? i love reading aboutthe greeks and romans,
but let's not act like they werethe only ones out here doing stuff, you feel me? i will quote greek androman philosophy all day, but i also want to knowabout timbuktu and africa. i want to know what isgoing on in ethiopia. that's equally important. and when you learnabout yourself you move from self-hatredas a black person, since this is black historymonth, you know i mean.
i'm not ugly because ofmy skin color or my nose or my lips or my hips oranything about me or my hair. your hair texture is notbetter than my hair texture. your eyes not betterthan my eyes because mine are shaped a certain way, andyours are shaped another way. your standard of beauty is notsuperior to my standard of beauty, does that make sense y'all? you know i mean? we're all equals here.
everyone's beautiful. everyone's handsome,but when you lift one up as superior and everyoneelse as inferior or a minority-- which is a word we should getrid of forever, forever ever, you know what i mean-- you destroy the psycheof people, and so when i hear people say to me,kevin powell, a lot of people say the n-word all the time. i said because they'vebeen miseducated
to believe that that's all theyare, and never even questioned where the word came from. kev, i hear you talkingabout sexism and why do these women do the things theydo in videos and stuff like that? because women-- i meanthink about the education. just like i didn't learnblack history, growing up, women's history, k through12, 13 years of school, betsy ross sewed a flag. florence nightingale.
remember helen keller? didn't really learnanything about her. she was disabled. that's what we learned,you know what i mean? i had no idea howamazing helen keller was. i was like, wow, she was a leader. she was progressive. rosa parks-- so sheserves double duty-- here she is for black history, andhere she is for women's history.
and in the last 10years we can say, well, hillary clinton, michelle obama,you can throw them in there. but most of us can't even name 10,15, 20 women in american history. why would you like yourself? why would you not refer toyourself in a derogatory way? does that makes sense, and then ifwe are men perpetuating patriarchy, why would we not participate insex trafficking of young girls every super bowl weekend? why would we not be theones who 90% of the cases
of domestic violence in this countryare us doing it to women and girls? the molestation, the incest, allof it, y'all with me out there? gross miseducation and so i realizedfor myself as a black person, hey, there's this system called racism. it's a system. these are systems. system means hey, the school systemis not inclusive of all people. the mass media culture systemis not inclusive of all people. and therefore, i'm going toget a very biased perspective.
a limited perspective onwho i am and my education. my re-reading ofstuff made me say, you know what, this is notacceptable anymore. this is not acceptable. if y'all get a chance, check outa piece i wrote about cam newton the football player. since we're talking about thesuper bowl, who was in super bowl last year? it's on huffington post.
it's called cam newton andthe killing of a mockingbird, and the reason why i wrote the pieceis because i've watched how people have attacked cam newtonover the last year or so, and yeah, there's some criticismthat should be levied against him. i'm looking at the same timeit's like, wait a minute, this young man doesn'tget in trouble. he's a father of two kids now. he has a foundation. does a bunch of stuffin the community.
but tom brady andpeyton manning, who has sexual charges going all the wayback to college in late 1990s that are still flying around him. no one says anything. that's called racism, y'all. look it up. and then on top of that, sincewe're talking about black history and history and white racism. i said, wait a minute,they're making a big deal
about this black quarterback. well, fritz pollard was the firstblack quarterback in the 1920s in this country, and notonly was he a quarterback, but he was a runningback, and he was a head coach for what became knownas the national football league. but by the early 1930s,the same national football league that over 100 million peoplewatching the super bowl on sunday don't realize, in the 1930s, theyactually banned black players from the national football league.
it's all in my article, becausei don't just write stuff. i research everything. so even sports is ametaphor for our country. so here we are, education. got to ask ourselves the question,what do i know about myself, and what do i know about peoplewho might be different than me? and do i have the courage tocross cultural boundaries and say, hey, jewish sister or brother-- hey, muslim sister or brother--
hey, christian sister or brother--hey, sikh sister or brother-- can you tell me somethingabout who you are? i want to learn. and it means that we've got tohave some love in our lives, you know i mean? we've got to move towards love. i don't know y'all,but i love y'all. you're not going to like everybody. son, i don't really like thatdude, you know what i mean?
but love means that you lift peopleup as you're lifting yourself up. love means that you're goingto be the opposite of mr. spicer at that whitehouse press conference earlier where you'rejust destroying people. even how he callsthe reporters names. they said that the american mediais now an oppositional party. have you heard that? that's insanity. because we're nowmoving towards fascism,
which is the opposite of love,democracy, or true democracy which what we're struggling for. from the very beginning, whatwe did to native americans, what we did to black peopleas we enslaved them, what we did to irishpeople and jewish people and japanese peopleand chinese people, that was the opposite of love. what we've done to women. i can't even imaginewhat it's like to be
a woman knowing that there'ssomeone in the white house who is a sexual predator. let's call it what it is, but youhave people who are around him. men and women who areendorsing and rubber-stamp, cosigning on that because they knowhow they feel about themselves. and because love-- dr. king said it. there's nothing wrongwith power, but there's something wrong with powerif it's not rooted in love.
i'm going leave y'all with this. where my irish sisters andbrothers that are out there? word. lot of y'all, much love to y'all. one of my heroes is a romancatholic irish-american brother named bobby kennedy. love bobby kennedy, andjust think about it. follow me for a second. this is a part of americanhistory and this ties
into our intersectionalitythat we're talking about here. who was his brother y'all? who was president? john. jfk. camelot right? that's what theycalled the white house. bobby kennedy was-- what was hewhen his brother became president? what was his position?
attorney general. people accused johnkennedy of nepotism. that's probably true. he hooked his brother up. bobby probably was not qualifiedto be attorney general, and he was mad young. he was in his early '30s. he was young, but the kennedy'slook out for each other. i know some folks who arekennedy's and you know and they're
american royalty if no one else is. they are in so many different ways. what was going on when bobbykennedy became attorney general in this country in 1961? the civil rights movement. you had black folks and whitefolks, young people, students, young people, freedomrides, sit-ins, protesting, being attacked fortrying to change the country. last night, when i got into myhotel here in portland, i watched--
i turned on-- what is yourpublic station called? oregon public broadcasting? yes. and they were talking about thehistory of racism in portland. i was like, thanky'all, appreciate it, and it was just like they weretalking about any other state in this country, the vicious racism,but only because people challenged it. well, bobby was reluctanteven as attorney general
to support these people. even as folks were dying, blackfolks and white folks, right? then something happenedin november of 1963. his brother john gets killed on tv. that was that generation's 9/11. the president of the united statesjust got his head blown off. people were shocked. bobby kennedy, who was john'sclosest confidant and his blood brother, is deeply traumatizedjust the way many of us
are traumatized right now aboutthe circumstances of this country. he goes into mourning. when he comes back a year or solater, he's a different person. in the last four years of hislife, this young, roman-catholic, irish-american, whitebrother of privilege-- the kennedy's are super wealthy-- began to use hisplatform and his voice to speak out andspeak for people who are less fortunate,not less equal, just
didn't have theprivileges that he had. look up his speech when hewent to south africa in 1966. he went into the teeth of apartheidand talked about and used the term white supremacy. look up right onyoutube the speech he gave the night thatdr. king was killed, april 4th, 1968, in indianapolis. bobby kennedy is one of onlya few white people there. it's a rally filled with blackfolks because by this point
bobby is running for president,and he had to as a white brother say to these black people that awhite man had just killed dr. king. but the way he gave that speech-- some of y'all know whati'm talking about-- and his compassion, his empathy-- indianapolis is oneof the only cities that did not explode in rebellionthe day that dr. king was killed. he was killed two months later. but his spirit lives, andi'll tell you why i say that.
i'm going to oakland friday night,and a couple years ago, oakland museum had an exhibit called 1968. and there were white, black, latino,asian, native american, people of all backgrounds, allidentities at this exhibit, and there was one part ofthe exhibit that we went to. it was a scene of bobby kennedy'scasket on a train driving down the east coast, and you saw peopleof all races and backgrounds saluting that casket. and i said, this is--
i get emotional thinking about it-- but this is where we arebrothers and sisters, sisters and brothers, fellow human beings. we've got some whoare in hard times, but i refuse to believe thatwe can't turn this around. if you look at the women'smarches a few weeks ago, that shows the power of people. if you look at all the folkswho came out to fight the ban. that came out last weekend.
that shows the power of people,are y'all with me out there? but we've got to have courageousconversations around race, and gender, and gender identity,and class, and ability, and disability,religion, or no religion, we gotta be willing to talkwith and, more importantly, listen to each other.
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