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Joy DeGruy

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    >> Good afternoon, everyone.
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    And welcome to this most
    special diversity salon.
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    We created the UVA Diversity Salons for us to
    engage in critical conversations about issues
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    that we might not normally
    discuss in our everyday lives.
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    And today, we have what I believe is the
    most special speaker of all for these salons.
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    My name is John Gaites, I'm associate
    dean for Diversity and Inclusion,
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    in the School of Engineering
    and Applied Science.
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    It is my pleasure to introduce
    Dr. Joy Degruy, a nationally
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    and internationally renowned researcher,
    educator, author, and presenter.
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    Dr. Degruy is an ambassador for healing and
    a voice for those who've struggled in search
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    of the past and continue to
    struggle through the present.
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    Dr. Degruy is an acclaimed author, having
    authored Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome,
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    America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing,
    Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: The Study Guide,
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    and Post-Traumatic Slave
    Syndrome Part 2: The Healing.
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    Dr. Degruy holds a bachelor's degree, a
    Bachelor of Science degree in Communications,
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    and two Master's degrees in Social
    Work and Clinical Psychology,
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    and a PhD in Social Work Research,
    as well as having spent over 20 years
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    as a professional in the field of social work.
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    This education and practical experience has
    provided her with extensive research on,
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    as well as hands on experiential insight
    into the various cultural and ethnic groups
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    that form the basis of contemporary
    American society.
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    Through these lectures, workshops, seminars, and
    special guest appearances, Dr. Degruy continues
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    to shine a light on those critical
    issues affecting our society.
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    Dr. Degruy's presentations have
    been lauded as the most dynamic
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    and inspirational lectures currently
    being delivered on the topics of culture,
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    race relations, and contemporary social issues.
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    It is my great privilege
    to present Dr. Joy Degruy.
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    [ Applause ]
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    >> -- watch that bottom stair,
    [inaudible], fall up the stairs.
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    So, good afternoon, is it afternoon?
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    I'm in a weird time zone thing going on.
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    So, I've been asked to do
    an amazingly difficult task,
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    I've been asked to compress a 10-week
    graduate level course into 45 minutes.
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    And how many people here are
    actually familiar with my work?
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    Okay --
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    Okay. No, no, I always ask that question
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    because it always determines where,
    what I'm going to talk about.
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    So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to
    -- you're going to see a lot of slides.
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    I will skip some, a lot of them
    actually, to try to get to the point.
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    So, let me just start with what
    Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is,
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    what it is not, and how I arrived at it.
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    So, I think I first began to look at
    behaviors within the African American community
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    that were disturbing to me as a child.
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    I grew up at a time where Black, to be
    Black, wasn't necessarily a good thing.
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    And in fact, when Black people
    insulted other Black people,
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    whatever they called you,
    they called you Black first.
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    "You Black," then fill in the blank.
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    "You Black."
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    And even as a child that seemed
    odd, because the assumption is, one,
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    I'm going to hurt you by calling you Black.
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    And that always seemed odd to
    me, because well, you are Black.
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    So what does, what does Black somehow mean
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    that I can assault another
    Black person with the word?
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    So even as a child that didn't make sense to me.
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    Or I heard things like, oh, she was really,
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    a really attractive girl,
    even though she was dark.
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    Or, he was really, you know,
    he was really good looking,
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    he was light skinned, and he had good hair.
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    Okay? And these were all, to me, symptoms
    of something I didn't quite understand.
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    I didn't get.
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    But as a social scientist it
    became very important to me.
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    So when we look at trauma for those of
    you that, you know, hear the term trauma,
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    it was very interesting for the
    response I got when I actually came
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    up with the term, post traumatic slave syndrome.
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    It's actually exactly what it sounds
    like, multigenerational trauma.
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    Multigenerational trauma's not a new concept,
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    we've looked at multigenerational
    trauma with other groups.
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    We've looked at victims of natural disaster,
    we've looked at Aboriginal folks in Australia,
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    First Nations, Native Americans, you know,
    we've looked at war, veterans, and all --
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    you know, we've looked at all kinds of people.
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    But it was very interesting the visceral
    response I got when I said slavery.
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    In fact, there are people who
    maybe even saw slavery in the title
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    and decided they weren't coming today.
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    Oh come on, surely you --
    you're free now, aren't you?
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    I wasn't there, okay, I didn't
    -- I didn't own slaves.
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    Well, I wasn't there either.
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    Or, you know, hey, get over it, you know?
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    All of these are the responses you
    get when you say the term slavery.
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    And I thought, as a social
    scientist, that's very interesting.
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    How come I can't say slavery
    but I can say, well holocaust?
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    How come? And I'll tell you why, because
    Jewish people honor their Holocaust.
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    And they don't particularly
    care what you think about it.
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    They're going to tell their children,
    they're going to tell their children,
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    and then Spielberg will make
    another movie if anyone misses it.
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    But what we're not going to do
    is not talk about our Holocaust.
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    But what I'm talking about is a Holocaust.
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    A Holocaust we've never really looked
    at, but we've been told to get over.
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    One we've never really observed or
    examined, but we've been told to get over.
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    So when we talk about trauma, if I were
    to shoot this individual seated here,
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    that would be a horrible thing and this
    person would be traumatized, you think?
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    Yeah, I think it's safe to assume that.
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    The person seated next to them is also
    traumatized because they saw me shoot them.
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    Someone in the hall heard the shot, later
    found out who was shot, they're traumatized.
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    The family members in Arkansas find out
    they've been shot, they're traumatized.
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    Then seated on the other side of the
    table was someone else that witnessed it
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    and we invite them to tell us their experience,
    and they go yes, Joy, it was horrible.
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    Blood everywhere, it was, yeah, when's lunch?
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    Not traumatized.
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    Because everyone's not traumatized
    by a singular traumatic event.
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    But when we talk about American chattel
    slavery, we're not talking about a single event.
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    We're talking about, about 339 years of trauma.
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    So we're not talking about it being
    plausible that people escape trauma,
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    they just never got treated for it.
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    It never got acknowledged.
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    So now let's do some math on that and
    let's take a look at what that means.
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    So, if a person experiences
    post-traumatic stress disorder,
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    which is only one stress-related illness,
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    they have certain symptoms
    that are associated with that.
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    Now, let's do some math on it, 339 years
    of trauma, and no help, because no one came
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    in to help you when you had trauma.
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    There was no Dr. Phil, right?
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    No doctors in the borders
    or outside the borders,
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    nobody showed up for that, for 339 years.
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    Okay, so then you got freed, any help then?
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    Anybody come and say, you know, I know
    it's been, you know, people beaten,
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    mutilated, raped, sold, experimented on.
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    Any help? Any group therapy?
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    Historically?
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    No, so let's see, 339 years of trauma, no
    help, freed, no help, did the trauma continue?
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    Three-hundred and thirty-nine years of
    trauma, no help, freed, no help, more trauma.
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    What we are is a miracle.
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    But what we've been told is well,
    we don't want to talk about that,
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    so let me give you some real upfront
    examples of it, hidden in plain sight.
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    Let's first give you an example, and I use this
    example and the reason why I'm starting here is
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    so that we can have a point of reference,
    because we can't heal what we don't understand.
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    So let's say you have a Black
    mother and a white mother.
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    Or a Black father and a white father.
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    It's not gender specific.
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    But you have a Black mother and a white
    mother, each one of them have sons.
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    And the sons know each other,
    they kind of grew up together,
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    and they're very much my son's experience
    with his friend, Nick, who's Greek.
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    He grew up with Nick.
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    Nick would show up in the living room, or
    show up in the kitchen table, and I go, Nick,
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    I didn't even know you spent the night.
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    Does your momma know you're here?
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    You know, Nick, he ended
    up being in his wedding.
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    So, you have a Black mother and a white
    mother, both their sons grew up together.
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    The Black mother finds herself seated next to
    the white mother at a meeting like this one,
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    and both of their sons are
    on either side of them.
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    And the Black mother leans forward and
    says to the white mother, "You know,
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    I just wanted to let you know, I
    noticed your son is really doing well."
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    And the white mother's very excited, "Thank you
    so much for noticing, did I mention he's in TAG?
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    That would be the Talented and Gifted Program.
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    In addition to that, you know, he also
    won the Science Fair, just last week.
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    You know, his uncle's an astronaut.
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    The boy is just brilliant,
    we're so proud of him."
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    And she's oozing with enthusiasm and
    she sits back, feeling warm and fuzzy.
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    And as she sits back, she realizes
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    that the Black mother's son
    is actually excelling her son.
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    So she leans back and she says to
    the Black mother, "Wait a minute,
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    you're talking about my son, your son's
    the one that's really coming along."
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    And the Black mother's response,
    "Girl, get out of here.
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    You should have seen that boy
    yesterday, whoo, he's something else.
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    He works my nerves, that boy is a handful.
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    Whoo! He's something else.
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    Girl, shut up, get out of here."
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    Now, how many people have
    seen or heard that behavior?
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    Okay. So what I wanted to understand
    is the etiology of the behavior.
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    Where did it come from?
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    I've been to seven countries in Africa, it's
    not an African thing, it is a Caribbean thing.
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    In fact, there's a secret, and it is
    always the secrets that make us sick.
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    It is not something that
    most of us even question.
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    Particularly those born in this skin, because
    everyone in this room that's of African descent,
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    know this secret, and the secret is that
    even though the parent, male or female,
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    father mother, is saying, oh that, oh he's
    something else, they're proud at the same time.
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    Am I telling the truth?
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    Okay, so now everybody's giving me that nod
    because we know, and it's regardless of class
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    or education, but I wanted
    to understand the etiology
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    of that, and I actually traced its roots.
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    And the way I did it was two ways, one,
    I read thousands of slave narratives,
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    and number two, I interviewed elders.
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    Adelaide Sanford, Vice Chancellor of
    Education of New York, called me while I was
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    on a radio show to confirm and verify that
    her grandmother, who had been enslaved,
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    told her what I said as a
    child, sitting at her feet.
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    So now let's roll the whole
    thing back several hundred years.
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    And you have a Black mother,
    and you have a white mother.
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    And the Black mother, of course, is
    enslaved and therefore also her children.
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    And so perhaps she's in the fields,
    or perhaps she's in the house,
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    but she's working and she's enslaved.
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    And a white slave owner comes
    through, male or female,
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    and says to the Black mother,
    "Is that your boy there?
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    That your boy?
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    Huh, that boy sure is coming along.
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    Look at him."
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    And what is she going to say?
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    "No sir, he's stupid, he's shiftless,"
    because I don't want you to sell him.
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    If it is my daughter, I don't want you to
    breed her, so I denigrate them to protect them.
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    That is called, Appropriate Adaptation,
    when living in a hostile environment.
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    Post traumatic slave syndrome.
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    You know how many of those there are.
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    Everything from what we eat to
    what we believe it means to live
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    in this skin that's colored by history.
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    But you see, we've never unpacked this
    because we never had the conversation,
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    because we've been told to get over it.
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    Or we say this other thing, which we can
    ill afford to say, well, it's their culture.
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    Well you see, African Americans cannot
    swallow whole what we call cultural,
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    because well, there's poison in the cookies.
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    And what I endeavor to do is to tease the
    poison from the cookies, because you see,
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    along with culture is adaptation and survival.
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    And that is all folded in to what it
    means to live in this skin in 2017.
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    But you see, most people look at this
    experience of slavery and they say,
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    you get immediate pushback, visceral, well, come
    on now, that slavery is not a new institution.
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    After all, almost every society had some
    form of indentured servitude or slavery,
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    or even your people, they enslaved each other.
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    You see, this is what the
    apologists say to throw you off.
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    But you see, American chattel slavery was
    different from every form that preceded it.
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    It differed in the manner in
    which a person became enslaved.
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    It differed in the treatment of the enslaved,
    it differed in the length of servitude,
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    but most importantly, it differed in
    how they were perceived as human beings.
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    Before the European slave trade began, most
    people became slaves as the result of a war.
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    Two societies went to war,
    winner's enslaved the losers.
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    Europeans however, systematically
    turned the capturing, shipping, selling,
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    and breeding of other human
    beings into a business.
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    A business that would develop into
    the backbone of an entire economy.
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    That's different.
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    So we have never had the conversation
    to ever stop having the conversation.
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    And again, we've, you know, there's
    just numerous things we can take a look
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    at as it relates to this, but that's what
    I began to look at so we can understand it.
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    So, moving forward, say this word, Dinquinesh.
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    >> [multiple] Dinquinesh.
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    >> Okay, they called her Lucy,
    but she was from Ethiopia
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    and they called her Dinquinesh,
    which means, thou art wonderful.
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    Very interesting that they
    called her Lucy, you think?
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    Based on mitochondrial DNA, we know that well,
    we all owe a debt of real support and pride
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    for Dinquinesh because we
    are a result of her DNA.
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    And she was African, but it escaped your text.
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    Why is that?
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    Why is it you knew about Lucy, but
    you didn't know about Dinquinesh?
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    Is Dinquinesh hard to say?
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    Is it obscure?
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    Is it something we didn't know?
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    No, it simply was summarily
    removed because you see,
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    then you have to begin to explain man's origins.
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    And well, Dana don't lie, the DNA does not lie.
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    So, how many of you, some of you have gray
    hair, which is what I have under this hair --
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    some of us had to read the
    Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
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    how many people had to read this?
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    It was mandatory reading when I
    was in my undergraduate studies.
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    By Thomas Kuhn.
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    And, you know, how many people
    are 50 or above, don't be afraid.
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    Isn't it wonderful not caring what people think?
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    It's just, it's such a freeing space to be in.
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    It's a development stage, I love it.
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    Anyway, so during the time that I was growing
    up, you know, I had a concept of reality
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    that was a little different, because
    my family was a little different.
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    But Thomas Kuhn said something in
    this book, the only thing I remember
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    by the way, was the structure of change.
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    How does change happen?
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    We always want change, but we don't
    act very well about changing things.
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    We go out kicking and screaming.
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    For example, if we don't understand how change
    occurs, we can't very well make it happen.
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    But we need to understand the structure,
    the symptoms, the signs of change.
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    For example, there was a point, I remember, when
    there would be actually ashtrays in this room.
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    There literally would be
    ashtrays in the room, right?
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    And then, you know, if you were my, you know,
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    my family and during the holidays you would
    go visit the family during the holidays
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    and they would break out the nice ashtrays.
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    Those would be the ones on the
    stands, and they had little marble,
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    with the little multiple, you know?
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    And you knew, oh, can't touch those
    ashtrays, because those are special.
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    Very special ashtrays.
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    I was having this conversation and my
    grandkids were like, so what's an ashtray?
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    They didn't even know what
    an ashtray was, right?
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    And in fact, if someone lit up
    a cigarette today in this room,
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    well I think the peer pressure
    alone would put it out,
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    but if for some reason the peer pressure
    didn't put it out, then we'd start doing,
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    you know, kind of a therapy thing.
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    Has there been a death in the family?
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    Is there, are they suffering
    some depression right now?
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    We start trying to diagnose the person,
    because clearly they are not well
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    if they have lit a cigarette in this room.
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    Right? That's how clear it is for us.
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    Now, how do we go from, I remember as a child
    running to the store to buy all the people,
  • 18:15 - 18:18
    adults in the neighborhood cigarettes.
  • 18:18 - 18:21
    Joy, get me some Winstons, some
    Cools, some Salems, you know?
  • 18:21 - 18:23
    And they would literally give you 50 cents.
  • 18:23 - 18:25
    I don't know what that means,
    but it's the truth.
  • 18:25 - 18:26
    I'd go run to the store.
  • 18:26 - 18:30
    How did we get from that to the point
    where if anyone even kind of tried to act
  • 18:30 - 18:33
    like they were going to smoke in this
    room, there would be some sort of revolt?
  • 18:33 - 18:36
    How, how did we get there?
  • 18:36 - 18:38
    Clearly the tobacco industry, well, lied.
  • 18:39 - 18:42
    And millions of people died while they lied.
  • 18:43 - 18:49
    But what happened between that period
    and this period was one, a lot of death,
  • 18:50 - 18:54
    a lot of struggle, and a
    preponderance of evidence.
  • 18:55 - 19:00
    So much evidence, in fact, was produced
    about cigarette smoking that even when you go
  • 19:00 - 19:04
    to the doctor now, right after
    they get that insurance form,
  • 19:04 - 19:07
    whatever you're coming there for,
    they're going to ask you, "Do you smoke?"
  • 19:08 - 19:11
    Because it exacerbates your health that much.
  • 19:11 - 19:18
    A preponderance of evidence forced
    a paradigm shift, never to return.
  • 19:19 - 19:23
    Well we, you know, have had similar experiences,
  • 19:23 - 19:27
    although there's a few scary people
    that believe the Earth is flat.
  • 19:27 - 19:28
    Most of us know it's not.
  • 19:28 - 19:33
    I'm really pleased, I'm very saddened
    that there's the Flat Earthers who still,
  • 19:34 - 19:35
    I'm thinking, haven't you seen the pictures?
  • 19:35 - 19:36
    I don't know.
  • 19:37 - 19:41
    But anyway, there was a preponderance
    of evidence.
  • 19:41 - 19:45
    Folks like Galileo, you know,
    Bornov, this was an individual
  • 19:45 - 19:47
    who had a dream that the universe was expansive.
  • 19:48 - 19:51
    He just dreamed it, and they burned him alive.
  • 19:52 - 19:56
    That's how much we fight against change.
  • 19:56 - 20:02
    And I want you to know we're on the precipice
    of change as it relates to race, and racism,
  • 20:02 - 20:05
    we're on the precipice, and you
    can tell because, you know, one,
  • 20:05 - 20:06
    there's a preponderance of evidence.
  • 20:08 - 20:13
    Never in our history has there ever been
    a time when the entire globe has looked
  • 20:13 - 20:16
    on at America and said, shame on you America.
  • 20:16 - 20:20
    Because you see, now you can't
    convince me, because well, I've seen it.
  • 20:22 - 20:25
    Now I can push a button and I can see it all.
  • 20:25 - 20:27
    And there is a preponderance of evidence
  • 20:28 - 20:31
    and like any other paradigm
    shift, it's going to be ugly.
  • 20:32 - 20:36
    Matter of fact, it's going to get far
    worse than we have ever seen in this room.
  • 20:36 - 20:41
    Because people are going to go out kicking
    and screaming before they're willing to share.
  • 20:43 - 20:48
    That reality is upon us, so this does not
    become simply a philosophical conversation.
  • 20:49 - 20:53
    I believe that truthfulness is the foundation
    of all the virtues of the world of humanity,
  • 20:54 - 20:56
    and I believe it's the secrets
    that make us sick.
  • 20:57 - 21:01
    So one of the things we have to take a look
    at is one reality, and that is a majority
  • 21:01 - 21:06
    of the world, what we call world, over
    the 7 billion-plus people on the planet,
  • 21:06 - 21:08
    the majority of those people
    are people of color.
  • 21:09 - 21:11
    That's just simply numbers, it's the truth.
  • 21:12 - 21:13
    It's the truth.
  • 21:14 - 21:18
    And guess what, we're seeing it reflected
    well in this room, and of course it is Be Kind
  • 21:18 - 21:24
    to Negroes Month, so some have
    come for different reasons.
  • 21:25 - 21:29
    But, a better reflection, a truer reflection of
    the world is the fact that well at this point,
  • 21:29 - 21:31
    we can't even guess who's coming to dinner.
  • 21:32 - 21:37
    So, I'm going to skip some
    of the warm and fuzzy things.
  • 21:38 - 21:43
    The reason why is because, you know, people
    -- this gets really thick and it gets intense,
  • 21:43 - 21:46
    one because it's compressed,
    and two, because it's intense.
  • 21:47 - 21:50
    One is astonished in the study of
    history at the recurrence of the idea
  • 21:50 - 21:52
    that evil must be forgotten,
    distorted, skimmed over.
  • 21:53 - 21:55
    We must not remember that
    Daniel Webster got drunk,
  • 21:55 - 21:58
    but only remember that he was a
    splendid constitutional lawyer.
  • 21:58 - 22:01
    We must forget that George
    Washington was a slave owner,
  • 22:01 - 22:04
    and simply remember the things we
    regard as credible and inspiring.
  • 22:04 - 22:07
    The difficulty, of course,
    with this philosophy is
  • 22:07 - 22:10
    that history loses its value
    as an incentive and example.
  • 22:10 - 22:16
    It paints perfect men and noble
    nations, but it does not tell the truth.
  • 22:16 - 22:19
    So it is America's pathology is her denial.
  • 22:20 - 22:22
    That is why this issue of
    race continues to be one.
  • 22:23 - 22:25
    Because of our denial.
  • 22:25 - 22:27
    But I'm going to talk about
    why we have the denial.
  • 22:27 - 22:32
    So when I start talking about the numbers, 339
    years, I want you to know where it came from;
  • 22:33 - 22:37
    1526, although there was
    slavery started long before this,
  • 22:37 - 22:42
    but in terms of the enslaved Africans,
    these folks were taken to the Carolinas
  • 22:42 - 22:44
    and so we're looking at 339 years.
  • 22:45 - 22:48
    So if we consider something called
    post-traumatic stress disorder,
  • 22:49 - 22:52
    when I was working on my second
    masters, which is in clinical psychology,
  • 22:52 - 22:58
    and we reached this particular part in
    the DSM, Diagnostic Statistical Manual
  • 22:58 - 23:03
    of Mental Disorders, I wanted to, I was curious
    about this post-traumatic stress disorder,
  • 23:03 - 23:06
    which post traumatic slave syndrome is not.
  • 23:07 - 23:08
    So who gets it?
  • 23:08 - 23:12
    Well, victims of rape, war
    veterans, heart attack victims,
  • 23:12 - 23:14
    victims of natural disasters,
    victims of severe accidents.
  • 23:14 - 23:16
    Well I raised my hand, I said, well you know,
  • 23:16 - 23:19
    I think enslaved Africans
    should be put on the list.
  • 23:20 - 23:22
    And they said no.
  • 23:22 - 23:23
    I said, okay.
  • 23:23 - 23:27
    So, what is the diagnostic criteria?
  • 23:27 - 23:31
    Now these are some of the symptoms that
    one might exhibit that has a diagnosis,
  • 23:31 - 23:33
    now understand that you don't
    have to have all of these,
  • 23:33 - 23:35
    you just need to have a couple
    of them to get the diagnosis.
  • 23:35 - 23:40
    Intense psychological distress at exposure
    to internal or external cues that symbolize
  • 23:40 - 23:42
    or resemble an aspect of the event.
  • 23:42 - 23:45
    Physiological reactivity to these
    things that resemble the event.
  • 23:45 - 23:49
    Marked diminished interest or
    participation in significant activities.
  • 23:49 - 23:52
    Feeling of estrangement from others,
    or restricted range of affect.
  • 23:52 - 23:54
    A sense of foreshortened future.
  • 23:54 - 23:56
    Difficulty falling or staying asleep.
  • 23:56 - 23:59
    Irritability, or outbursts of
    anger, difficulty concentrating,
  • 23:59 - 24:02
    hyper vigilance, exaggerated startle response.
  • 24:02 - 24:08
    Now, what we have to understand is there's two
    things that happen, one is you have the trauma,
  • 24:08 - 24:10
    you exhibit some of those behaviors.
  • 24:10 - 24:15
    And my question is, during this
    period of chattel slavery, this is --
  • 24:15 - 24:20
    these are the experiences that people had, and
    thus these were the behaviors they exhibited.
  • 24:20 - 24:23
    But we didn't know Big Mama was broken.
  • 24:23 - 24:25
    It was just Big Mama.
  • 24:25 - 24:27
    We just got to be quiet some time.
  • 24:27 - 24:33
    Oh yeah, so such and such across the way,
    he screams out sometimes, he gets violent.
  • 24:33 - 24:34
    Are you following me?
  • 24:34 - 24:38
    So these are behaviors that not only people
    experience and folks have their own trauma,
  • 24:38 - 24:40
    but they also model the behavior.
  • 24:41 - 24:46
    So people began to learn,
    Bandura, Social Learn Theory,
  • 24:46 - 24:47
    you learn from the people in your environment.
  • 24:47 - 24:50
    And if those people are broken,
    you're learning broken behavior.
  • 24:50 - 24:51
    Does that make sense?
  • 24:52 - 24:54
    Right, so nobody got really well.
  • 24:55 - 24:57
    We just learned how to make do.
  • 24:58 - 25:07
    So then I thought to myself, okay, would
    then enslaved Africans warrant the,
  • 25:08 - 25:10
    at least some of them, because inevitably
    there's always people who are saying,
  • 25:10 - 25:13
    but Dr. Degruy, weren't there happy slaves?
  • 25:15 - 25:17
    Weren't there, weren't there some happy ones?
  • 25:18 - 25:22
    Because people really need to believe that there
    were happy ones, all three of them, go ahead.
  • 25:22 - 25:24
    Just throw them in there.
  • 25:24 - 25:26
    Again, you know, live free or?
  • 25:26 - 25:30
    Die. That's how important freedom is to us,
  • 25:30 - 25:33
    but somehow we should reconcile
    ourselves to a life of bondage, happily.
  • 25:34 - 25:35
    Permanent bondage.
  • 25:36 - 25:41
    So, for those that, let's say, weren't happy
    with it, we have to assume that, you know,
  • 25:41 - 25:43
    they experienced some levels of stress.
  • 25:44 - 25:49
    So if we consider the diagnostic features
    of post-traumatic stress disorder, again,
  • 25:50 - 25:56
    post traumatic slave syndrome is impacted by
    and infected by post-traumatic stress disorder,
  • 25:56 - 26:00
    but it is not post-traumatic stress
    disorder, which is treatable with, you know,
  • 26:00 - 26:03
    talking to people softly twice
    a week, medications, and such.
  • 26:04 - 26:06
    Post traumatic slave syndrome
    is not so easily solved.
  • 26:07 - 26:11
    It requires social justice,
    in addition to the healing.
  • 26:12 - 26:17
    Most common trauma involved, let's
    see if the enslaved Africans got it,
  • 26:17 - 26:19
    and those after slavery, they get it too.
  • 26:19 - 26:21
    Let's see, a serious threat
    or harm to one's life
  • 26:21 - 26:24
    and physical integrity, did we get that one?
  • 26:24 - 26:27
    Yeah. Threat or harm to one's
    children, spouse, or close relatives.
  • 26:27 - 26:28
    Did we get that one?
  • 26:28 - 26:31
    Thug destruction of one's home or community.
  • 26:31 - 26:35
    Seeing another person injured, killed as
    a result of accident or physical violence.
  • 26:35 - 26:37
    Learning about a serious
    threat to a close friend
  • 26:37 - 26:39
    or relative, kidnapped, tortured, or killed.
  • 26:40 - 26:43
    Stress was experienced with intense
    fear, terror, and helplessness.
  • 26:44 - 26:47
    Disorders considered to be more
    serious and will last longer
  • 26:47 - 26:49
    when the stressor is of human design.
  • 26:50 - 26:50
    Seven out of seven.
  • 26:51 - 26:53
    Not likely that, or plausible
    that we escaped it.
  • 26:55 - 26:56
    Not plausible.
  • 26:57 - 27:00
    But we're an amazing people,
    extraordinarily resilient.
  • 27:00 - 27:03
    So, we'll look at the role of history
  • 27:03 - 27:06
    and shaping our contemporary
    attitudes and beliefs about race.
  • 27:07 - 27:11
    Let's start with the United States
    Constitution, which of late has been
  • 27:11 - 27:14
    such an important contested issue.
  • 27:14 - 27:16
    People are always, my constitutional right!
  • 27:16 - 27:19
    And I don't know why I just
    had such a response to it.
  • 27:19 - 27:22
    And this is something internally
    just would trigger stuff for me.
  • 27:23 - 27:25
    But I kind of know why now.
  • 27:27 - 27:31
    Because one of the things that the
    United States has had to deal with is
  • 27:31 - 27:34
    that cognitive dissonance that's associated
  • 27:34 - 27:37
    with its fundamental beliefs
    in freedom and democracy.
  • 27:39 - 27:42
    Cognitive dissonance, by the way,
    how many people know what that is?
  • 27:42 - 27:45
    It's thinking discord, it's
    literally what it sounds like.
  • 27:45 - 27:48
    When you are simultaneously
    holding contradictory ideas,
  • 27:48 - 27:50
    beliefs, thoughts, behaviors.
  • 27:51 - 27:54
    So we have a country that says,
    send us your poor, your tired,
  • 27:54 - 27:58
    your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
  • 27:58 - 28:04
    One nation under God, indivisible,
    with liberty and justice for all.
  • 28:04 - 28:10
    How does one reconcile the very obvious
    contradiction, the hypocrisy associated
  • 28:10 - 28:17
    with that, while enslaving Africans
    for 339 years, and committing genocide
  • 28:17 - 28:18
    against the natives of this land?
  • 28:18 - 28:20
    How does one reconcile the contradiction?
  • 28:22 - 28:27
    Well, here's what you have to remember, always,
    in order to oppress or subjugate an entire group
  • 28:27 - 28:33
    of people, regardless of who that group is, in
    order to resolve the dissonance, you have to,
  • 28:33 - 28:36
    number one, justify your behavior,
    which calms the conscience.
  • 28:37 - 28:44
    And two, you have to re-label the people in such
    a way that it fits your behavior towards them.
  • 28:45 - 28:48
    Somehow then, slavery must be reasonable.
  • 28:48 - 28:51
    But let's look at Thurgood,
    and anyone who doesn't know
  • 28:51 - 28:54
    who Thurgood Marshall is, shame on you.
  • 28:56 - 29:03
    This was written in 1987, and this
    was at the bicentennial, you know,
  • 29:04 - 29:07
    celebration of the writing of the Constitution.
  • 29:07 - 29:11
    "We the People of the United States, in Order
    to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice,
  • 29:11 - 29:16
    insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the
    common defence, promote the general Welfare,
  • 29:16 - 29:20
    and secure the Blessings of Liberty
    to ourselves and our Posterity,
  • 29:20 - 29:23
    do ordain and establish this Constitution
    for the United States of America."
  • 29:23 - 29:26
    Well, most of you in the room
    were not included in that.
  • 29:27 - 29:30
    It did not include women, and it
    most certainly did not include people
  • 29:30 - 29:31
    who were three-fifths human.
  • 29:32 - 29:36
    While slavery was never mentioned in the
    Constitution, what Thurgood Marshall says
  • 29:36 - 29:40
    at this particular meeting, and you should
    read the entire document, you can go online
  • 29:40 - 29:42
    and read it, he said it was defective
  • 29:42 - 29:45
    with the first three words of
    its preamble, we the people.
  • 29:45 - 29:50
    No doubt it will be said when the
    unpleasant truth of the history of slavery
  • 29:50 - 29:55
    in America is mentioned during this bicentennial
    year, that the Constitution was a product
  • 29:55 - 29:59
    of its times and embodied a
    compromise, which compromise is that?
  • 30:00 - 30:03
    That would be the three-fifths
    compromise, we'll get close with that one.
  • 30:03 - 30:06
    Which, under other circumstances
    would not have been made,
  • 30:06 - 30:09
    but the effects of the framers'
    compromise have remained for generations.
  • 30:09 - 30:13
    They arose from the contradiction
    between guaranteeing liberty and justice
  • 30:13 - 30:16
    to all, and denying both to negroes.
  • 30:16 - 30:22
    But in the propaganda, W.E.B. says, against
    the negro, since emancipation in this land,
  • 30:22 - 30:26
    we face one of the most stupendous efforts
    the world ever saw to discredit human beings.
  • 30:26 - 30:31
    An effort involving, look closely, universities,
    history, science, social life, and religion.
  • 30:31 - 30:36
    I looked a little further in my book, Post
    Traumatic Slave Syndrome, it is not exhaustive,
  • 30:36 - 30:39
    it's just all I had time to look at.
  • 30:39 - 30:43
    Because you see, every single one,
    every major institution in America had
  • 30:43 - 30:47
    to normalize chattel slavery for 339 years.
  • 30:48 - 30:50
    They had to somehow make it make sense.
  • 30:50 - 30:51
    Are you following me?
  • 30:51 - 30:58
    Every discipline, engineering,
    business, law, medicine,
  • 30:59 - 31:01
    all of it had to justify this, you see?
  • 31:01 - 31:03
    Because it produced dissonance.
  • 31:03 - 31:09
    We're talking about a people from
    Europe that deemed themselves superior,
  • 31:10 - 31:14
    noble, intelligent, civilized, moral.
  • 31:15 - 31:19
    But they engaged for 300 years in
    something that was the antithesis of that.
  • 31:20 - 31:22
    They engaged in barbarism.
  • 31:23 - 31:30
    How does one reconcile this notion of intrinsic
    nobility, while engaging in barbaric behavior?
  • 31:31 - 31:33
    You have to remove the dissonance.
  • 31:33 - 31:41
    I'm not going to talk about racism,
    I usually, I've spent a lot of time
  • 31:41 - 31:45
    with my graduate students in the School
    of Social Work, most of whom are women,
  • 31:46 - 31:52
    social workers, MSW students, most of
    them white, that end up in my class.
  • 31:52 - 31:56
    And I always tell them, don't take my
    class because it fits in your schedule.
  • 31:56 - 32:00
    Not the kind of -- I try to weed
    out the folks, thin it early.
  • 32:00 - 32:04
    I do try to thin it, because it's
    a life-changing class, it truly is.
  • 32:04 - 32:06
    Ten weeks in my course, you're not the same.
  • 32:06 - 32:07
    You can't un-know it.
  • 32:07 - 32:11
    And so I always tell them, you know,
    tread lightly, and don't try this at home.
  • 32:11 - 32:13
    I told them, I try.
  • 32:13 - 32:15
    And then I also try to warn them.
  • 32:15 - 32:19
    I used to go, I put the syllabus out there,
    you know, you can go online and look at it.
  • 32:19 - 32:22
    It tells you that it's an African
    American, you know, we're going to look
  • 32:22 - 32:26
    at African American history,
    multigenerational trauma, my area of expertise,
  • 32:26 - 32:28
    and violence, it's very clear, the syllabus.
  • 32:29 - 32:32
    So what I mean by that is, I'm going
    to talk about Black people this week,
  • 32:32 - 32:34
    I'm going to talk about Black people next week,
  • 32:34 - 32:36
    I'm going to talk about Black
    people the week after that.
  • 32:36 - 32:39
    In fact, all 10 weeks I'm going
    to talk about Black people.
  • 32:40 - 32:42
    And I'm going to also show up Black myself.
  • 32:43 - 32:48
    So, I'm trying to warn you that there's
    going to be a thing about Black people.
  • 32:48 - 32:51
    And inevitably, no matter what,
    there's always a student, you know,
  • 32:51 - 32:55
    my evaluations were always quite high, but
    there would be one student that would say, gosh,
  • 32:55 - 33:00
    you know, Professor spent an inordinate
    amount of time talking about Black people.
  • 33:00 - 33:03
    Wish she would have included other people.
  • 33:03 - 33:06
    And you know, here's the thing, I have
    four degrees, three of them advanced,
  • 33:06 - 33:08
    you know how much of that
    was about white people?
  • 33:09 - 33:14
    But one 10-week course, oh
    gosh, it's just too much.
  • 33:14 - 33:16
    Absolutely amazing.
  • 33:16 - 33:19
    So you know, I usually try to, again,
    weed it out, and then you know,
  • 33:19 - 33:24
    I have to weed out the folks that, you
    know, that don't understand what racism is.
  • 33:24 - 33:26
    So I said, let me just apply my
    definition so everybody can be clear.
  • 33:26 - 33:27
    It usually thins the class as well.
  • 33:28 - 33:29
    People get upset, you know.
  • 33:29 - 33:34
    I say, don't get in your feelings in my
    class, if the white girl cries in my class,
  • 33:34 - 33:35
    she's going to have to get a tissue.
  • 33:36 - 33:36
    Nothing stops.
  • 33:37 - 33:39
    Because you know, white girls'
    crying stop everything.
  • 33:40 - 33:43
    It's caused people to be
    lynched when a white girl cries.
  • 33:43 - 33:46
    Well, I let them know on the
    frontend, this song is not about you.
  • 33:46 - 33:48
    So, let's be clear about that.
  • 33:48 - 33:49
    It's not here to take care of you.
  • 33:50 - 33:51
    I'm not here to take care of you.
  • 33:51 - 33:57
    So part of my work is always trying
    to help, again, I do no harm.
  • 33:57 - 34:00
    At the end of the day, I don't,
    if you all go out of my class,
  • 34:00 - 34:07
    I don't want you to harm anyone that's already
    injured, with your niceness, or your ignorance,
  • 34:07 - 34:09
    or your whatever the new words are,
  • 34:09 - 34:13
    your difficulty understanding the
    ally position, or cultural humility.
  • 34:13 - 34:19
    Whatever word fits, just don't
    hurt people, how about that?
  • 34:19 - 34:22
    And this always centers around
    this notion of racism, right?
  • 34:22 - 34:26
    Which people usually mean prejudice when
    they're talking about racism, because you know,
  • 34:26 - 34:28
    I ask my audience, I've actually
    cleared out classes.
  • 34:28 - 34:32
    And I usually don't do it myself, I
    actually have my graduate students come in
  • 34:32 - 34:36
    and do this ahead of time, so I don't have to
    deal with the person that goes, are you sure?
  • 34:38 - 34:40
    I mean, aren't things better for you people now?
  • 34:41 - 34:43
    I mean, you had a Black president.
  • 34:43 - 34:45
    Come on. Right?
  • 34:45 - 34:46
    See, I don't have time for that.
  • 34:46 - 34:47
    That's race relations 101.
  • 34:47 - 34:48
    Don't have time for it.
  • 34:49 - 34:54
    Because I have students in the class
    talking about, we want reparations, right?
  • 34:54 - 34:56
    And you've got someone that's
    going, are you sure?
  • 34:56 - 34:58
    So it's, anyway.
  • 34:59 - 35:03
    I try to help them understand that it's more
    than just a system of advantage based on race,
  • 35:03 - 35:07
    so then I have to give them an equation so
    that they can understand what I mean by racism.
  • 35:08 - 35:13
    So I ask my students, and I ask audiences of
    people, do they understand what racism is,
  • 35:13 - 35:16
    and you know, of course people are like scared.
  • 35:16 - 35:17
    They go, is this a trick question?
  • 35:18 - 35:20
    I go okay, so, we'll talk about it.
  • 35:20 - 35:23
    So I ask my students, do you think
    there's such a thing as white racism?
  • 35:23 - 35:27
    And that means white racism enacted
    by white people on other folks.
  • 35:27 - 35:28
    Do you believe that exists?
  • 35:28 - 35:31
    And again, it's a kind of
    fear, yeah, kind of thing.
  • 35:31 - 35:34
    Yeah, I think we pretty much know
    that, preponderance of evidence.
  • 35:34 - 35:37
    Okay. Do you think there's, in
    America right here, Black racism?
  • 35:38 - 35:40
    Equal number of hands go up.
  • 35:40 - 35:43
    Okay, so now we're going to define
    racism so we can all be on the same page,
  • 35:43 - 35:46
    because I always assume people are
    on the same page, but we're not.
  • 35:46 - 35:47
    Most people aren't.
  • 35:47 - 35:54
    So, I would like for you, audience, to tell
    me in what ways white racism adversely,
  • 35:54 - 35:59
    negatively impacts the lives of
    Black people as an entire group
  • 35:59 - 36:00
    of people in America, in what ways.
  • 36:00 - 36:01
    Name them.
  • 36:02 - 36:06
    Economically, jobs.
  • 36:06 - 36:07
    Incarceration.
  • 36:08 - 36:09
    Healthcare.
  • 36:10 - 36:11
    Identity, education.
  • 36:12 - 36:15
    Okay, so actually write it
    down, so everybody can read it.
  • 36:15 - 36:16
    And then we go on and I stop them.
  • 36:16 - 36:19
    I'm going, okay, so now we're going to
    go over to the category of Black racism.
  • 36:19 - 36:27
    I need you to tell me how Black racism
    adversely impacts the lives of white people
  • 36:27 - 36:30
    in America as an entire group of people.
  • 36:31 - 36:34
    And that's when they go, I'm leaving.
  • 36:34 - 36:36
    She's calling me a racist, I'm out, I'm out.
  • 36:38 - 36:42
    I'm not calling you a racist, I'm just
    explaining to you that I may not like you,
  • 36:42 - 36:45
    you may have Black people that hate
    white people, invite folks over,
  • 36:45 - 36:48
    throw darts at pictures of them, drink beer.
  • 36:49 - 36:50
    But you still get the loan.
  • 36:50 - 36:54
    You still get, you know, are you following me?
  • 36:54 - 36:57
    So it's not just that you don't
    like me, but you have the power
  • 36:57 - 36:59
    to impact me as an entire group of people.
  • 36:59 - 37:01
    That further thins the class.
  • 37:01 - 37:04
    So let's start with something we all recognize,
  • 37:05 - 37:06
    how many people have been
    to the Statue of Liberty?
  • 37:06 - 37:11
    Okay, I've been to the Statue of Liberty
    now four times, but I was resistant.
  • 37:11 - 37:14
    A really good friend of mine works
    for the Department of the Interior,
  • 37:15 - 37:20
    and back in 2008 said, Joy, he's over
    all the national parks in New York State.
  • 37:21 - 37:23
    He says, Joy, I want you to
    come to the Statue of Liberty.
  • 37:23 - 37:24
    I said, no Floyd, I'm not coming.
  • 37:25 - 37:26
    He said, why?
  • 37:26 - 37:28
    I said, because it's going to make me mad.
  • 37:28 - 37:30
    He goes, come on Joy, I really want you to come.
  • 37:30 - 37:32
    I said, no Floyd, I don't
    think I'm ready to come.
  • 37:32 - 37:34
    I'm not going to have a good attitude.
  • 37:34 - 37:37
    He goes, come on, I can get you a pass,
    you can go up in her eye and everything.
  • 37:38 - 37:38
    I said, okay.
  • 37:39 - 37:42
    So I go to the Statue of Liberty, and the reason
    why I didn't want to go is I'd already been
  • 37:42 - 37:47
    to France, I'd already seen the earlier
    renderings of Bartholdi, and you know,
  • 37:47 - 37:49
    so when you get there, first
    of all, there are thousands
  • 37:49 - 37:51
    of people getting off the little ferry, right?
  • 37:51 - 37:53
    And the little kids with
    the little rope are walking,
  • 37:53 - 37:55
    and the people with the cameras,
    and everybody's there.
  • 37:55 - 37:56
    Every 20 minutes, thousands of people.
  • 37:57 - 38:01
    And you know, you get kind of pushed together
    in a little group and I had already decided
  • 38:01 - 38:02
    that I was going to have to go twice,
  • 38:02 - 38:05
    because I knew I wasn't going
    to be objective the first time.
  • 38:05 - 38:07
    So I already planned a trip to come back,
  • 38:07 - 38:09
    because I knew I wasn't going
    to have the right attitude.
  • 38:09 - 38:12
    And I actually was traveling with a really
    good friend of mine, her name is Faith Holmes.
  • 38:12 - 38:14
    White white, Faith is very white.
  • 38:15 - 38:18
    And Faith almost got us thrown
    out because she had a meltdown.
  • 38:18 - 38:20
    Okay, it was Faith that did it.
  • 38:20 - 38:23
    But anyway, so we're traveling
    together and, you know, we get --
  • 38:23 - 38:28
    the little ranger gets everybody, he
    goes, I'm going to be your ranger today.
  • 38:28 - 38:31
    And you know, I'm going to be
    the one touring you through.
  • 38:31 - 38:36
    Well see, I already knew that this
    rendering, now this is a bad picture,
  • 38:36 - 38:39
    I actually have a better picture, I need to
    put it in there, but this is the one I took.
  • 38:39 - 38:45
    And you can actually see Floyd's reflection,
    we're bouncing off the -- because this is --
  • 38:45 - 38:48
    I knew this picture was here,
    because it's a historical document.
  • 38:48 - 38:52
    And this is one of the earlier renderings
    of the Statue of Liberty, by Bartholdi,
  • 38:52 - 38:54
    and she has broken chains in her left hand.
  • 38:54 - 38:58
    This was commissioned in 1865,
    important date, do you think?
  • 38:59 - 39:02
    Yes, because it was to celebrate the end
    of the Civil War, the end of slavery.
  • 39:03 - 39:05
    And Bartholdi thought it was an excellent idea
  • 39:05 - 39:08
    to have broken chains symbolizing
    the break with slavery.
  • 39:08 - 39:13
    Now, I knew that this existed,
    matter of fact, I actually found it.
  • 39:13 - 39:17
    I can almost guarantee you, you didn't,
    when you went to the Statue of Liberty.
  • 39:18 - 39:22
    It was in the basement of the
    Statue of Liberty, encased in glass,
  • 39:22 - 39:25
    behind some figurines, facing
    a wall in a hallway.
  • 39:25 - 39:29
    I went looking for it, because
    I knew it had to be there.
  • 39:29 - 39:33
    So when my ranger pulled us all together
    and he says, I am going to be touring you,
  • 39:33 - 39:40
    and if anyone has a question -- I was wondering
    if you could talk to us about the chains.
  • 39:41 - 39:43
    And of course, now it's translated, and chains?
  • 39:43 - 39:44
    Chance? What is she talking about chains?
  • 39:45 - 39:48
    He says, thank you so much for that
    question and we'll talk about it later.
  • 39:48 - 39:51
    Well, you know, they tell you more than you
    ever want to know about the Statue of Liberty.
  • 39:52 - 39:55
    They tell you how thick it is, they
    cut it in half, they show it to you,
  • 39:55 - 39:57
    they tell you it's green because it's
    copper and that's why it turned green.
  • 39:57 - 39:59
    They tell you how they got it over there.
  • 39:59 - 40:03
    They say, this is our first chance at the
    torch over here, there's her head over there.
  • 40:03 - 40:04
    They just tell you everything.
  • 40:05 - 40:07
    But they don't talk about the chains.
  • 40:11 - 40:17
    So, we end up in the Bronze Garden, and here
    is Bartholdi, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi.
  • 40:18 - 40:22
    I didn't pronounce that right, but
    that's as close as I can get to it.
  • 40:22 - 40:27
    So Bartholdi ended up in a huge argument
    with the United States around the chains.
  • 40:28 - 40:31
    Remember, this is the Statue of Liberty, of
    course we want to forge this relationship
  • 40:31 - 40:36
    with France, but we also, you know, want to
    acknowledge the end of such a horrific period
  • 40:36 - 40:39
    in American history, by showing the chains.
  • 40:39 - 40:40
    The United States said, no.
  • 40:41 - 40:44
    Bartholdi said, well no,
    I'm going to have to insist.
  • 40:44 - 40:47
    And the United States said, no.
  • 40:47 - 40:51
    Who won? Who won?
  • 40:52 - 40:53
    Bartholdi won.
  • 40:54 - 41:00
    They are at her feet, where it is impossible
    to see them under any circumstances.
  • 41:00 - 41:03
    Unless, of course, you have a
    zoom lens from a helicopter.
  • 41:05 - 41:09
    Because you see, once you show the
    chains, then you have to explain them.
  • 41:10 - 41:15
    And that would cause cognitive
    dissonance, especially for Timmy and Cindy.
  • 41:16 - 41:21
    So we almost had news at
    11:00, in the ranger house.
  • 41:21 - 41:25
    And I was, I said, I don't
    understand, because you let me --
  • 41:25 - 41:27
    they said, well Dr. Degruy, what's the issue?
  • 41:27 - 41:31
    I said, well you know, inevitably when you go to
    the Statue of Liberty, you will hear people go,
  • 41:31 - 41:33
    yes, well you know, my great-great
    came through Ellis Island.
  • 41:34 - 41:36
    You know, our great-great, you know, Mayflower.
  • 41:36 - 41:39
    You know, my great-great
    -- These are white people.
  • 41:39 - 41:44
    You see, Black people, men, women, and
    children, look on curiously at Lady Liberty
  • 41:44 - 41:46
    because they feel no connection to her.
  • 41:46 - 41:53
    But how much taller would they stand if they
    knew that she was standing on the chains
  • 41:53 - 41:55
    that their ancestors came in the belly of ships?
  • 41:56 - 42:01
    How much prouder would they be, young Black
    men, about the shoulders upon which they stand?
  • 42:02 - 42:06
    Because, you erase the chains, you erase me.
  • 42:06 - 42:11
    And so I had a, I was acting, and
    feeling some kind of way about that.
  • 42:12 - 42:14
    As an educator, you see.
  • 42:14 - 42:18
    And so you know, I went, and I spoke,
    went to the ranger station, we you know,
  • 42:18 - 42:20
    had some moments that the ranger station.
  • 42:21 - 42:22
    And nothing happened.
  • 42:23 - 42:26
    So I started telling this
    story all around the country.
  • 42:26 - 42:28
    Matter of fact, not only around
    the country, all around the world.
  • 42:28 - 42:30
    I show the slides.
  • 42:31 - 42:36
    And I ended up with the, you know, getting
    a call from the Department of the Interior,
  • 42:39 - 42:40
    because you know, when I went back.
  • 42:40 - 42:44
    Remember, I told you I went back again, I
    wanted to find out a couple things, one,
  • 42:44 - 42:49
    if the chains would be mentioned
    unasked, and they were not.
  • 42:50 - 42:55
    So when I got to the Department of Interior,
    there was a meeting of the higher ups,
  • 42:56 - 43:00
    and they said, first of all, Dr.
    Degruy, we want to apologize, you know,
  • 43:00 - 43:05
    about the whole situation here with the chains,
    and what we would like you to do is we'd
  • 43:05 - 43:11
    like to hire you to come in and train all
    of our rangers, and that picture is now
  • 43:11 - 43:13
    on display at the Statue of Liberty.
  • 43:14 - 43:19
    [ Applause ]
  • 43:19 - 43:23
    Only problem is, only problem is,
    they kind of mentioned, sort of,
  • 43:24 - 43:28
    Statue of Liberty is a tapestry of all
    symbols woven together to create new meaning,
  • 43:28 - 43:32
    her classic face, classical face and
    drapery suggests a Roman Goddess of Liberty,
  • 43:32 - 43:36
    the broken shackles symbolize
    freedom, newly achieved, whose?
  • 43:37 - 43:40
    You see? So that's, one of you all
    are going to have to -- I'm done.
  • 43:40 - 43:41
    I'm not doing this anymore.
  • 43:41 - 43:45
    I'm done. So you all got to fix that one.
  • 43:45 - 43:47
    Hidden in plain sight though, you see?
  • 43:48 - 43:49
    Hidden in plain sight.
  • 43:49 - 43:53
    And these are things that are not obscure,
    they're just deliberately left out.
  • 43:54 - 43:57
    But you see, I cannot heal
    myself if I don't know who I am.
  • 43:59 - 44:02
    If I don't honor the shoulders
    upon which I stand,
  • 44:02 - 44:04
    everybody in this room, someone
    paid for you to be here.
  • 44:05 - 44:07
    Everyone. Someone paid for you to be here.
  • 44:07 - 44:13
    But people of African descent don't know,
    because we've been told to get over it.
  • 44:14 - 44:17
    So, only way to see the chains,
    this is you know, first trip.
  • 44:17 - 44:21
    This is leaning backwards, there's a little
    lip, you can see the little lip on the --
  • 44:21 - 44:25
    that's as much as you could see with the
    naked eye, leaning backwards with a zoom lens.
  • 44:25 - 44:28
    So, that picture, and you'll know it's a new
    picture, because it's the only one in color.
  • 44:29 - 44:32
    So when you go on the tour, and
    you go through the ranger station,
  • 44:32 - 44:35
    you'll see that picture in
    color that's now there.
  • 44:36 - 44:41
    So we know there was a Trail of Tears, which
    was a forced relocation of Native people,
  • 44:41 - 44:43
    we know thousands died as a result of exposure.
  • 44:43 - 44:50
    We know that there were individuals who offered
    reparations to redress some of the issues,
  • 44:50 - 44:54
    one of them the boarding schools, which were
    torture chambers, truly, for Native children.
  • 44:55 - 45:00
    Of course Native people laughed out loud
    at the $250 million that was offered them.
  • 45:01 - 45:03
    But we also had a Trail of Tears.
  • 45:03 - 45:09
    These are pictures, how many people have
    been to Ghana for the slave castles?
  • 45:10 - 45:14
    Well, you know it's interesting
    because this picture escaped my text.
  • 45:15 - 45:18
    They somehow didn't make it to the text.
  • 45:18 - 45:23
    All two pages of Black history, and one
    was a picture, this one didn't make it.
  • 45:24 - 45:27
    So, first of all, this is the Door
    of No Return at Elmina slave castle.
  • 45:27 - 45:31
    Now, I don't know if people realize it,
  • 45:31 - 45:33
    but we weren't all just waiting
    on the coast for the cruise.
  • 45:35 - 45:38
    People were marched from the
    interiors of Africa to that coast.
  • 45:40 - 45:44
    And based on historians,
    there millions died in route.
  • 45:44 - 45:48
    But you didn't hear about them.
  • 45:48 - 45:54
    You didn't know how many fought back or died
    of exposure, or got lost, or became sick.
  • 45:54 - 45:56
    You just didn't know.
  • 45:57 - 45:58
    But it's not obscure.
  • 45:58 - 46:01
    Big old giant castle, I took these pictures.
  • 46:02 - 46:03
    Cape Coast slave castle.
  • 46:06 - 46:12
    When you first walk in, there's two things
    that greet you, one, not only the cannon balls
  • 46:12 - 46:14
    and everything else, but that's not
    actually meant for enslaved Africans,
  • 46:14 - 46:17
    that's for the European invaders,
    they were fighting each other.
  • 46:18 - 46:22
    So on one side is a female dungeon, on the
    other side is the male dungeon, slave dungeons.
  • 46:23 - 46:29
    And what happened immediately is upon entering,
    when they would bring the enslaved men, women,
  • 46:29 - 46:33
    and children in, they would rape
    the women within 50 feet of the men.
  • 46:34 - 46:38
    In front of their fathers, their
    brothers, their sons, their husbands.
  • 46:39 - 46:42
    They would rape them to remind
    them, he can't protect you.
  • 46:43 - 46:48
    This is the male slave dungeon, Cape Coast.
  • 46:49 - 46:52
    Now, it's difficult to see, but in this photo,
  • 46:52 - 46:56
    I wish we could turn the
    lights out, is that possible?
  • 46:56 - 46:57
    No? Alrighty.
  • 46:58 - 47:01
    So, the floors are actually slanted
  • 47:02 - 47:04
    and the first thing you want to
    do when you go in is get out.
  • 47:05 - 47:10
    It smells, it's wet, it's slippery, you're
    sliding because the floors are slanted .
  • 47:10 - 47:13
    In the middle of the door, it's
    hard to see, there's a trench,
  • 47:13 - 47:17
    because there's no running water, no
    facilities, hundreds of men and boys are packed
  • 47:17 - 47:21
    in this facility, and they warn you
    before they do what I do next, and it's,
  • 47:21 - 47:26
    that is they turn out the light, because there
    was no light, and the only source of light
  • 47:26 - 47:33
    and ventilation, and this is a vaulted
    situation, were those three little openings
  • 47:33 - 47:40
    which is what they, you can imagine
    the toxicity in terms of the waste.
  • 47:41 - 47:44
    Then there was the death cell for African men.
  • 47:44 - 47:47
    This becomes really important
    I think, for young Black men
  • 47:47 - 47:50
    to understand how frequently
    African men fought back,
  • 47:50 - 47:54
    so frequently that they created
    a death cell for them.
  • 47:54 - 47:57
    Meaning that when they were placed in this
    cell, they were no longer given food or water,
  • 47:58 - 48:00
    the only source of ventilation
    are the small holes in the door.
  • 48:01 - 48:03
    The big square you see I will explain next,
  • 48:03 - 48:08
    but they would literally
    thirst to death, and suffocate.
  • 48:09 - 48:12
    But almost in total darkness
    they carved these symbols.
  • 48:13 - 48:16
    They actually to this day don't know how
    they did it, because this is solid stone.
  • 48:17 - 48:22
    But somehow they managed to carve into solid
    stone, these symbols, African symbols calling
  • 48:22 - 48:26
    out to the ancestors to please come and
    to deliver them from their suffering.
  • 48:27 - 48:31
    Next door to them was a cell where white
    soldiers were held for no more than 24 hours.
  • 48:31 - 48:34
    That is their window and the latticed door.
  • 48:35 - 48:38
    This is where I had a bit of a
    meltdown, these are stairs leading
  • 48:38 - 48:41
    from the governor's bedroom
    to the female slave dungeon.
  • 48:42 - 48:46
    He commissioned to have these built, even
    though his wife and children lived with him
  • 48:46 - 48:49
    in the apartment above, he
    needed to have absolute
  • 48:50 - 48:53
    and immediate access to girls and women.
  • 48:53 - 48:58
    This is a steel ball enslaved Africans women
    were chained to when they resisted being raped,
  • 48:58 - 49:02
    they were chained in the middle of the
    courtyard naked, no longer given food or water.
  • 49:03 - 49:08
    Another cell, death cell for African women
    who fought back, more like a pit or a hole.
  • 49:09 - 49:13
    UNESCO, having made these particular
    castles tourable, were having difficulty
  • 49:13 - 49:18
    with this particular one, note that there seems
    to be a watermark at the top, where it's light.
  • 49:19 - 49:22
    They were trying to level the ground,
    the workers, they couldn't figure
  • 49:22 - 49:25
    out why they couldn't and
    they were trying to break
  • 49:25 - 49:27
    through two feet of solidified human waste.
  • 49:28 - 49:34
    Which means that Africans, enslaved
    Africans, were wallowing in two feet
  • 49:34 - 49:37
    of waste, and Europeans never removed it.
  • 49:37 - 49:44
    And right in the middle, of course, well bit
    of a contradiction you think, is a church.
  • 49:44 - 49:48
    Now the church is not there for the enslaved
    Africans, it is there for the soldiers
  • 49:48 - 49:51
    so they can worship in the midst of it all.
  • 49:52 - 49:54
    Now, I want you to say this word, maafa.
  • 49:54 - 50:02
    Maafa is a key Swahili word, which means the
    "great suffering," the "great catastrophe,"
  • 50:02 - 50:05
    and what we refer to as the Black Holocaust.
  • 50:06 - 50:10
    It is a triangular route, the Middle Passage
    of slavery, which brought enslaved Africans
  • 50:11 - 50:15
    through various places, Cuba, Caribbean.
  • 50:16 - 50:19
    And I want you to look closely at
    this picture, it's interesting,
  • 50:19 - 50:21
    one of the few things that
    remain that you look at.
  • 50:21 - 50:25
    And it bothers me, because you see,
    it's peculiar absent of any feeling,
  • 50:26 - 50:28
    but those are really great, perfect dimensions.
  • 50:29 - 50:32
    People were packed that tightly, because
    after all, they were cargo, you see.
  • 50:32 - 50:36
    And like any cargo, they're tightly
    packed because there's an expectation
  • 50:36 - 50:38
    that some of it will spoil en route.
  • 50:38 - 50:42
    And in that case, what would
    this mean for enslaved Africans?
  • 50:43 - 50:44
    To spoil en route.
  • 50:45 - 50:46
    It means that they would die.
  • 50:47 - 50:50
    But why? Why were they estimating
    that so many would die?
  • 50:51 - 50:58
    Let me give you some dimensions as approximately
    an average of 18 inches of space between them.
  • 50:59 - 51:03
    It is where they slept, it is where
    they wept, it is where they ate,
  • 51:03 - 51:08
    it is where they defecated, it is where
    they urinated, it is where they menstruated,
  • 51:08 - 51:11
    it is where they vomited, gave birth, and died.
  • 51:12 - 51:14
    Eighteen inches of space.
  • 51:15 - 51:23
    The lowest figure on record for those that
    died during the Middle Passage, is 9 million.
  • 51:24 - 51:33
    Based on ship manifests, like Amistad, ship
    manifests kicked that number up to 15 million,
  • 51:33 - 51:37
    because at least as many
    died as actually arrived.
  • 51:38 - 51:39
    But it didn't make it to your text.
  • 51:39 - 51:41
    How is that?
  • 51:41 - 51:44
    How many Jews died during the Holocaust?
  • 51:44 - 51:47
    Say it. You know.
  • 51:48 - 51:50
    How many? Six million.
  • 51:50 - 51:51
    Of course you know.
  • 51:51 - 51:52
    And you should never forget that.
  • 51:53 - 51:56
    But you didn't know how many died
    during the Middle Passage, now did you?
  • 51:56 - 51:59
    Is this obscure?
  • 51:59 - 52:00
    It is not.
  • 52:01 - 52:02
    It is not.
  • 52:03 - 52:04
    Why is it?
  • 52:04 - 52:06
    How is it we don't honor them?
  • 52:08 - 52:14
    There's not a plaque, not a moment
    of silence, anywhere in this country,
  • 52:15 - 52:19
    except the burial ground, that
    acknowledges this holocaust.
  • 52:20 - 52:22
    Why is that?
  • 52:22 - 52:24
    It's not obscure.
  • 52:24 - 52:25
    Are you following me?
  • 52:27 - 52:30
    Because it causes cognitive dissonance.
  • 52:31 - 52:35
    It's a picture of the shackles
    and of the people.
  • 52:36 - 52:39
    Based on the International Criminal Court,
  • 52:39 - 52:45
    this squarely placed the United States
    having committed crimes against humanity.
  • 52:46 - 52:50
    Clearly stated that America has never
    acknowledging nor paid for her sins.
  • 52:51 - 52:56
    How many of you knew that the United
    States apologized for slavery, twice?
  • 52:57 - 52:59
    Two-thousand-eight and 2009.
  • 52:59 - 52:59
    Interesting.
  • 53:02 - 53:03
    They apologized twice.
  • 53:03 - 53:07
    House of Representatives, U.S. Senate.
  • 53:07 - 53:13
    But it wasn't like, you know,
    CNN didn't take a special moment,
  • 53:14 - 53:17
    there weren't, you know, assemblies at school.
  • 53:17 - 53:19
    Pretty important moment in
    our history, don't you think?
  • 53:20 - 53:21
    How is it it escaped?
  • 53:22 - 53:24
    Hidden in plain sight.
  • 53:24 - 53:27
    Well, let's - I just took a piece of it, you
    should, you know, it should be everywhere.
  • 53:27 - 53:33
    It should be a document somewhere, I don't
    know, but somehow even Black people don't know.
  • 53:34 - 53:37
    Two-thousand-and-eight and 2009,
    and did they just remember then?
  • 53:37 - 53:43
    Why then? I'll tell you why, because
    2008 marked the 200th anniversary
  • 53:43 - 53:44
    of the end of the slave trade in America.
  • 53:45 - 53:50
    In 2007, I was in Europe, because the prime
    minister invited me, among other scholars,
  • 53:50 - 53:55
    to come to the country to acknowledge
    the 200th anniversary of the end
  • 53:55 - 53:58
    of the slave trade in Europe, 2007.
  • 53:58 - 53:59
    Well, America had to do something.
  • 54:00 - 54:06
    And they say, we acknowledge, the Federal
    Government, the injustice, cruelty, brutality,
  • 54:06 - 54:08
    and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow.
  • 54:08 - 54:11
    The resolution states that the vestiges
    of Jim Crow continue to this day,
  • 54:11 - 54:15
    African Americans continue to suffer from
    the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow --
  • 54:15 - 54:17
    long after both systems were
    formally abolished -- How?
  • 54:18 - 54:22
    " -- through enormous damage and loss, both
    tangible and intangible, including the loss
  • 54:22 - 54:27
    of human dignity and liberty, the
    frustration of careers and professional lives,
  • 54:27 - 54:31
    and the long-term loss of
    income and opportunity --
  • 54:31 - 54:36
    " They knew, but they dared you to say
    anything about it, and so, you didn't.
  • 54:38 - 54:45
    So when we look at the more recent
    statement by the UN, 2016, January,
  • 54:46 - 54:48
    "UN Working Group of Experts on People
  • 54:48 - 54:52
    of African Descent released its preliminary
    recommendations after more than a week
  • 54:52 - 54:56
    of meetings with Black Americans and others
    from around the country, including Baltimore,
  • 54:57 - 55:00
    Chicago, New York City, the District
    of Columbia, and Jackson, Mississippi.
  • 55:00 - 55:06
    After finishing their fact-finding mission,
    the working group was extremely concerned
  • 55:06 - 55:08
    about the human rights situation
    of African Americans.
  • 55:08 - 55:13
    The colonial history, the legacy of enslavement,
    racial subordination and segregation,
  • 55:13 - 55:17
    racial terrorism, and racial inequality
    in the U.S. remains a serious challenge
  • 55:17 - 55:20
    as there's been no real commitment
    to reparations and to truth
  • 55:20 - 55:22
    and reconciliation for people
    of African descent.
  • 55:22 - 55:27
    Contemporary police killings and the
    trauma it creates are reminiscent
  • 55:27 - 55:29
    of the racial terror lynchings in the past.
  • 55:29 - 55:34
    Impunity for state violence has resulted
    in the current human rights crisis
  • 55:34 - 55:37
    and must be addressed as a matter of urgency."
  • 55:37 - 55:39
    That would be 2016.
  • 55:40 - 55:44
    But we didn't talk about it.
  • 55:45 - 55:48
    It came and went, hidden in plain sight.
  • 55:50 - 55:54
    So now we have to understand
    the branches of the various --
  • 55:54 - 55:58
    somebody needs to tell me where I am in time
    too, because I have no, I can't -- have no idea.
  • 56:00 - 56:02
    How much time do I have?
  • 56:03 - 56:03
    You said five minutes?
  • 56:04 - 56:05
    Are you serious?
  • 56:06 - 56:07
    It's not his fault.
  • 56:07 - 56:10
    It really isn't.
  • 56:10 - 56:17
    Okay, so I'm going to go really
    fast and, very hard to do this.
  • 56:17 - 56:23
    Okay, so we will go to Carl, now you all know
    Carl, Carl von Linnaeus, everyone in the room,
  • 56:23 - 56:26
    because we took him through high
    school, in high school biology.
  • 56:26 - 56:29
    And I just want you to know that you should
    get concerned whenever you see someone dressed
  • 56:29 - 56:31
    like him.
  • 56:31 - 56:41
    Carl von Linnaeus, 1707 to 1778, most well-known
    for classifications of things, species,
  • 56:41 - 56:43
    phylum, genus, he just classified stuff.
  • 56:44 - 56:47
    He also took, made his attempt
    to classify human beings.
  • 56:47 - 56:51
    Now remember I told you, every major
    institution in America had to be complicit
  • 56:51 - 56:53
    with slavery and to somehow justify it.
  • 56:53 - 56:55
    So let's see what Carl had to say.
  • 56:56 - 56:59
    Carl describes Homo Americanus,
    now understand that we're talking
  • 56:59 - 57:02
    about science here, who might that be?
  • 57:02 - 57:04
    Those would be Natives.
  • 57:04 - 57:08
    He says they are reddish, choleric,
    abstinent, contented, and regulated by customs.
  • 57:08 - 57:09
    No science yet.
  • 57:10 - 57:14
    Homo Europesnus, that would be white people,
    he says they're white, fickle, sanguine,
  • 57:14 - 57:17
    blue-eyed, gentle, and governed by laws.
  • 57:18 - 57:22
    Homo Asiaticus, that would be Asians,
    he says they're sallow, grave,
  • 57:22 - 57:25
    dignified, aborishas, and ruled by opinion.
  • 57:25 - 57:32
    And then there's Homo [inaudible], Black,
    phlegmatic, cunning, lazy, lustful,
  • 57:32 - 57:35
    careless, and governed by caprice.
  • 57:35 - 57:40
    These insights into what Linnaeus defined
    as racial character, personality traits,
  • 57:40 - 57:43
    and a host of other related categories
    are more fixed in the races themselves.
  • 57:43 - 57:45
    And by the way, there's not a shred of science.
  • 57:46 - 57:50
    At this point, again, my students
    feeling cognitive dissonance push back,
  • 57:50 - 57:52
    Dr. Degruy, but look at the year, 1707.
  • 57:52 - 57:55
    I said, do you not still hear these
    attributions about Black people?
  • 57:56 - 57:57
    Doesn't matter.
  • 57:58 - 57:59
    But no one checked his vitae.
  • 58:00 - 58:00
    Let's see.
  • 58:01 - 58:09
    Linnaeus, after one week received his PhD for a
    13-page dissertation from the Dutch university
  • 58:09 - 58:13
    of Harderwijk, which one historian of science
    designated as a mail-order institution.
  • 58:13 - 58:16
    The University of Harderwijk
    was known for selling degrees.
  • 58:16 - 58:19
    There's a saying in the Netherlands for a person
    who's scientific knowledge is questionable,
  • 58:19 - 58:21
    well, he's from the University of Harderwijk.
  • 58:21 - 58:27
    Then there's Johann, you all know Johann, Johann
    Friedrich Blumenbach, you can just look at him
  • 58:27 - 58:29
    and know there's something wrong here.
  • 58:29 - 58:33
    Johann, Johann originated the term, "Caucasian."
  • 58:33 - 58:38
    Now this man decided that, you know, the
    Caucasian stock, of course, was superior,
  • 58:38 - 58:42
    he says, and it you know, revealed
    the most beautiful form of the skull,
  • 58:43 - 58:47
    from which is the meaning primeval type,
    the others diverge by most easy gradations
  • 58:47 - 58:51
    on both sides of its ultimate extremes, that
    is on the one side, the Mongolian, the other,
  • 58:51 - 58:54
    the Ethiopian, besides, it is white in color.
  • 58:55 - 58:58
    Anybody ever met a skull that wasn't?
  • 58:58 - 59:02
    Okay. Which we may fairly assume to have
    been the primitive color of mankind.
  • 59:03 - 59:08
    Zippity-doo-dah, no science here, but
    well, they didn't check his vitae either.
  • 59:08 - 59:12
    Blumenbach received a medical degree
    from the University of Göttingen
  • 59:12 - 59:15
    after submitting a 15-page long dissertation.
  • 59:15 - 59:18
    Boy, if only I had lived --
    well no, I'd be enslaved.
  • 59:18 - 59:23
    The result of one year's study,
    one year, with an older professor
  • 59:23 - 59:25
    who owned an extraordinarily large
  • 59:25 - 59:27
    and disordered natural history
    collection, that would be skulls.
  • 59:28 - 59:30
    Now this becomes very important,
    because this set the stage
  • 59:30 - 59:32
    for what we understand as white racism.
  • 59:32 - 59:36
    Because you see, racism and the
    concept of whiteness did not exist.
  • 59:37 - 59:42
    So what began to happen was we created
    this notion of beauty, Caucasian beauty,
  • 59:42 - 59:47
    and therefore we had this
    whole idea of a superior race,
  • 59:48 - 59:52
    breeding better human beings,
    eugenics became a movement.
  • 59:52 - 59:59
    But what we know based on contemporary
    science is that race is biological fiction.
  • 60:00 - 60:04
    We are 99.99% the same, 9999.
  • 60:04 - 60:11
    So it begs the question of the
    bell curve now, doesn't it?
  • 60:12 - 60:17
    But there's a reason why people want to, and
    it keeps reemerging, this notion of inferiority
  • 60:17 - 60:19
    and superiority, because then
    you can justify your behavior.
  • 60:20 - 60:25
    So as the secrets make us sick, we need to
    understand what happened about that fear
  • 60:25 - 60:29
    of that original number I showed you, and I
    told you the majority of the people of the world
  • 60:29 - 60:32
    of color, the world is a world of
    colors, the majority of people.
  • 60:32 - 60:36
    Well, the first fear that showed
    up was a fear of annihilation,
  • 60:36 - 60:40
    and this is not something I'm making
    up, this came straight out of,
  • 60:40 - 60:43
    in this particular case, the Oregon Territory.
  • 60:43 - 60:47
    The negroes associate with the Indians,
    inter-marry, and if they're free ingress
  • 60:47 - 60:50
    and courage are allowed, there were a
    relationship spring up between them,
  • 60:50 - 60:53
    in other words, the fear is they're going
    to get together, they're going to make a lot
  • 60:53 - 60:56
    of children, they're going
    to kill all the white people.
  • 60:56 - 61:02
    Now, according to a mid-1800s census, there
    were 600 thousand mixed race children born,
  • 61:02 - 61:06
    even though miscegenation laws were in
    effect, meaning it was illegal to be
  • 61:06 - 61:07
    with someone of a different race.
  • 61:08 - 61:12
    Six-hundred-thousand, that's
    how many they counted.
  • 61:13 - 61:14
    That's a lot of sneaking out back, you think?
  • 61:14 - 61:22
    And do you think this, these are men of colors
    kind of sneaking into white women's parlors?
  • 61:22 - 61:24
    No, this is the rape of women of color.
  • 61:24 - 61:26
    And we have numbers for that.
  • 61:26 - 61:28
    It's not my opinion, that's a fact.
  • 61:28 - 61:31
    Want you to take a close look at what
    happens when you have that much fear.
  • 61:32 - 61:37
    This was 2014, showed up in front of
    an immigration organization in Oregon.
  • 61:39 - 61:40
    Diversity equals what?
  • 61:45 - 61:46
    White genocide.
  • 61:47 - 61:48
    That means death.
  • 61:48 - 61:51
    Stay with me, remember I told you
    we were on the precipice of change?
  • 61:52 - 61:57
    You know we are because when that kind
    of a fear arises, it's us against them.
  • 61:57 - 62:01
    Hence, you can see what's going on
    in the country and around the world.
  • 62:01 - 62:05
    It is a real fear, and I'm not making it up.
  • 62:05 - 62:07
    Here's someone who let us know in his own words.
  • 62:07 - 62:12
    This is Dylann Roof, who went into
    a church and shot nine people.
  • 62:12 - 62:16
    He says, Black people are raping our women,
    interesting, and taking over our country.
  • 62:16 - 62:19
    Someone needed to do something
    about it for the white race.
  • 62:19 - 62:24
    I may be paranoid, but it
    appears someone's following me.
  • 62:25 - 62:32
    So, Southern Poverty Law Center put this out
    in 2016, and actually, this has increased
  • 62:32 - 62:38
    since then, the number of hate and radical
    anti-government groups are both up 14%.
  • 62:38 - 62:42
    The 10 states with the highest number of
    hate groups, Texas, no surprise, number one,
  • 62:42 - 62:46
    California, number two, 26 of
    the 68 are racist hate groups.
  • 62:47 - 62:50
    It continues and that is on
    the rise, because remember,
  • 62:50 - 62:53
    I told you we're on the precipice,
    on the precipice.
  • 62:54 - 62:56
    So when we look at politics,
    and you look at people
  • 62:56 - 62:58
    like James Madison, again,
    look how he's dressed.
  • 62:59 - 63:03
    And this is where he basically deals
    with the three-fifths compromise,
  • 63:03 - 63:05
    which you can barely know he's
    talking about human beings.
  • 63:05 - 63:08
    Look at the way it's written, "Blacks
    are inhabitants but is debased
  • 63:08 - 63:12
    by servitude below the equal level of
    free inhabitants, which regards the slave
  • 63:12 - 63:13
    as divested of three-fifths -- " Really?
  • 63:13 - 63:15
    What does that mean?
  • 63:16 - 63:19
    It means that you have just, with
    the stroke of a pen, dehumanized me.
  • 63:20 - 63:26
    Now we also know that a whole lot
    of presidents have had slaves.
  • 63:26 - 63:33
    Now, this list, by the way, again, not
    obscure, but it's not showing up in textbooks.
  • 63:33 - 63:35
    Matter of fact, it's been removed.
  • 63:36 - 63:39
    Now let me say that again, not going
    to be removed, has been removed.
  • 63:39 - 63:45
    In fact, Texas is the Walmart of textbooks.
  • 63:46 - 63:49
    That's where poor school
    districts go to get their books.
  • 63:49 - 63:51
    And they have changed the textbooks.
  • 63:52 - 63:55
    So the two pages of Black history
    that was there, is not there anymore,
  • 63:55 - 63:58
    and slavery has been totally removed,
    and they have to memorize now, students,
  • 63:59 - 64:02
    the actual speeches of the confederacy.
  • 64:02 - 64:06
    If you don't believe me, recently what arose,
    this was on Facebook, became a huge thing,
  • 64:06 - 64:10
    a kid that was in a geography class was
    reading something, and it said something
  • 64:10 - 64:13
    about the America bringing
    over workers and laborers.
  • 64:15 - 64:18
    And he took a picture of it and sent it
    to his mother, and all hell broke loose.
  • 64:18 - 64:23
    And of course they removed that back from the
    shelf, only to be replaced with the same thing.
  • 64:24 - 64:28
    But we should have gone after the editors,
    and publishers, and everyone involved.
  • 64:28 - 64:30
    But you see, this has been done on our watch.
  • 64:31 - 64:33
    Not going to be done, has been done.
  • 64:33 - 64:41
    And then we get to well, your guy.
  • 64:41 - 64:46
    Thomas Jefferson, actually closed out my
    book with a soliloquy from Thomas Jefferson,
  • 64:46 - 64:51
    where he says and I quote, "Indeed I tremble for
    my country, when I consider that God is just,
  • 64:51 - 64:54
    and that his justice cannot sleep forever."
  • 64:55 - 64:56
    Those were his words.
  • 64:57 - 65:02
    Thomas Jefferson becomes a very important
    person as we begin to look at perceptions,
  • 65:02 - 65:06
    because you see, if Thomas
    Jefferson said it, it must be true.
  • 65:06 - 65:09
    He set the stage for not only
    what his countrymen believed,
  • 65:09 - 65:11
    but what everyone believed around the world.
  • 65:12 - 65:15
    He said, Blacks smell bad and
    were physically unattractive.
  • 65:15 - 65:18
    This is a little inconsistent
    with his behavior, you think?
  • 65:20 - 65:24
    Now most Black people knew about Sally Hemings,
    my grandmother used to talk about Sally Hemings,
  • 65:24 - 65:28
    but this is amazing, white people started
    clutching their pearls, not Thomas.
  • 65:32 - 65:37
    Then he goes on to say something even more
    egregious, he says that we required less sleep.
  • 65:37 - 65:40
    And you see, for me as a social
    scientist, this became very interesting.
  • 65:40 - 65:44
    Why would Thomas Jefferson, in other words,
    what cognitive dissonance was he experiencing
  • 65:44 - 65:49
    that he somehow had to mediate, what
    was he feeling that he would make
  • 65:49 - 65:51
    such an assertion that we required less sleep?
  • 65:51 - 65:54
    What was a work day for an enslaved African?
  • 65:54 - 65:58
    From can't see to can't see,
    the slave narratives say.
  • 65:59 - 66:00
    From can't see to can't see.
  • 66:00 - 66:04
    And here's what you get faced
    with in 2017, oh you know,
  • 66:04 - 66:06
    you African Americans, you're over sensitive.
  • 66:06 - 66:09
    You have, what empirical evidence
    do you have to support that?
  • 66:10 - 66:12
    How can you count and measure that?
  • 66:12 - 66:15
    Do you have any physical evidence to suggest
  • 66:15 - 66:17
    that they didn't have breaks
    and vacations and what have you?
  • 66:17 - 66:18
    What do you know?
  • 66:18 - 66:20
    Because this, and you know, it's a shutdown.
  • 66:20 - 66:21
    You get the pushback.
  • 66:21 - 66:23
    Well, we actually do have evidence.
  • 66:23 - 66:25
    Well you can at first ask the enslaved Africans.
  • 66:25 - 66:26
    They can tell you.
  • 66:26 - 66:30
    This is Sarah Gudger, she said, "Never
    known nothing about work, never knew rest,
  • 66:30 - 66:33
    felt like my back was going to
    break, that's the gospel truth."
  • 66:34 - 66:36
    And then something even more peculiar happened,
  • 66:36 - 66:40
    our people unearthed themselves
    well on Wall Street.
  • 66:40 - 66:43
    Most people don't associate
    slavery with New York or the North,
  • 66:43 - 66:49
    truth is all 13 colonies had slavery, with
    estimates of 10-20 thousand people buried
  • 66:49 - 66:53
    in this seven-acre burial ground, it's
    considered the largest known site of its kind
  • 66:53 - 67:00
    in the U.S. Blakey's analysis of human
    skeletal remains revealed that these men
  • 67:00 - 67:03
    and women were literally worked to death.
  • 67:04 - 67:04
    How do you know?
  • 67:05 - 67:09
    They suffered from enthesopathies, a condition
    resulting in the muscle detaching itself
  • 67:09 - 67:12
    from the bone as a result of people
    being worked beyond human capacity.
  • 67:13 - 67:14
    You lazy people you.
  • 67:15 - 67:16
    Isn't it amazing?
  • 67:16 - 67:23
    Who worked so hard that the muscle actually
    detaches itself from the bone, who does that?
  • 67:23 - 67:27
    I'll tell you who, someone who has a gun
    trained on them from sunrise to sunset.
  • 67:28 - 67:29
    And yet he asserted these things.
  • 67:29 - 67:33
    He goes on to say something even more
    egregious, he says, "we were dumb,
  • 67:33 - 67:36
    cowardly, and incapable of feeling grief."
  • 67:36 - 67:37
    These are his words.
  • 67:39 - 67:42
    Why would Thomas Jefferson,
    one, assert it, number two,
  • 67:42 - 67:44
    why would he need to believe
    we could not feel grief?
  • 67:44 - 67:47
    What was he and others like him, doing?
  • 67:47 - 67:53
    While you were ripping mothers away from
    their babies, and husbands from wives,
  • 67:53 - 67:58
    and brothers from sisters, surely they
    cannot feel grief, that would make them what?
  • 67:59 - 68:02
    Like him. And yet he asserted it.
  • 68:02 - 68:06
    But here's my question, do
    you think he saw grief?
  • 68:06 - 68:12
    You think he didn't hear and see
    the mothers screaming and crying
  • 68:12 - 68:14
    and begging them, don't take my babies?
  • 68:15 - 68:18
    The man saw it and then asserted
    it didn't exist.
  • 68:18 - 68:23
    And that is the pathology
    that surrounds whiteness.
  • 68:24 - 68:27
    That denial has permeated so much.
  • 68:29 - 68:35
    So, moving to education, I want to kind
    of -- I don't even know where to go.
  • 68:40 - 68:46
    Education has done its fair share as it relates
    to pathologizing, you know, the Negro problem,
  • 68:47 - 68:48
    and the whole idea the white man's burden.
  • 68:48 - 68:52
    That all came out of the idea of
    benevolence and we're just trying
  • 68:52 - 68:53
    to make you all, we're trying to help you.
  • 68:54 - 68:56
    We're trying to civilize you.
  • 68:56 - 69:00
    So let me move forward, gosh, I wish I had time.
  • 69:01 - 69:06
    A very little known thing, Albert
    Einstein lecturing to a segregated group
  • 69:06 - 69:08
    of African American students
    at Lincoln University says,
  • 69:08 - 69:12
    "My trip to this institution was on behalf
    of a worthwhile cause, there is a separation
  • 69:12 - 69:16
    of colored people from white people in the
    United States, that separation is not a disease
  • 69:16 - 69:18
    of colored people, it is
    a disease of white people.
  • 69:18 - 69:20
    I do not intend to be quiet about it.
  • 69:20 - 69:21
    And he was not.
  • 69:21 - 69:23
    But you didn't hear about it.
  • 69:24 - 69:27
    So when we start talking about
    post traumatic slave syndrome,
  • 69:27 - 69:32
    and I'll try to wrap this up,
    I don't know how to do it.
  • 69:32 - 69:37
    This is a book, the Mis-Education of the Negro,
    by Carter G. Woodson, everyone should have,
  • 69:37 - 69:40
    because it is upon his shoulders
    that I truly stand with my work.
  • 69:40 - 69:46
    I want you to listen carefully to this, it says,
    "The same educational process, which inspires
  • 69:46 - 69:48
    and stimulate the oppressor with
    the thought that he is everything
  • 69:48 - 69:53
    and has accomplished everything worthwhile,
    depresses and crushes at the same time the spark
  • 69:53 - 69:57
    of genius in the Negro, by making him feel
    that his race is does not amount to much,
  • 69:58 - 70:01
    and never will measure up to
    the standards of other people's.
  • 70:01 - 70:07
    The Negro thus educated, is a
    hopeless liability of the race."
  • 70:07 - 70:13
    Why? Because the difficulty is that
    the educated Negro is compelled to live
  • 70:13 - 70:16
    and move among his own people whom
    he has been taught to despise.
  • 70:17 - 70:22
    As a rule, therefore, the educated Negro
    prefers to buy his food from a white grocer
  • 70:22 - 70:26
    because he has been taught
    that the Negro is not clean.
  • 70:26 - 70:30
    It does not matter how often a Negro
    washes his hands, he cannot clean them.
  • 70:30 - 70:33
    And no matter how often a white man
    uses his hands, he cannot soil them.
  • 70:34 - 70:36
    post traumatic slave syndrome.
  • 70:36 - 70:38
    Why can't they get along?
  • 70:38 - 70:40
    How come they're always putting each other down?
  • 70:40 - 70:42
    Why is it they can't seem
    to get together on anything?
  • 70:42 - 70:46
    How come they -- Well, that
    would be because of Stephen.
  • 70:47 - 70:54
    If you all saw Django, Samuel
    L. Jackson's character, Stephen.
  • 70:54 - 70:58
    Matter of fact, not only does Stephen
    exist then, Stephen exists now.
  • 70:58 - 71:00
    In fact, white people always hire Stephen.
  • 71:01 - 71:04
    Let's be clear about that.
  • 71:04 - 71:09
    Now that's not my opinion, we got the data,
    and the data says that white people are,
  • 71:09 - 71:12
    the darker you are, the bigger
    you are, the greater the fear.
  • 71:12 - 71:13
    Conscious or unconscious.
  • 71:14 - 71:18
    So white people gravitate to Black
    people who don't like themselves.
  • 71:18 - 71:23
    And those people then become what we have
    here, Black here, we have your representative.
  • 71:24 - 71:26
    And everybody Black is like going, Lord.
  • 71:26 - 71:33
    How are we going to somehow
    work around this fool?
  • 71:34 - 71:38
    Who becomes the spokesperson and the gatekeeper.
  • 71:38 - 71:40
    And we go, well there they are.
  • 71:40 - 71:43
    And those people are actually more
    harmful than someone white would be.
  • 71:44 - 71:49
    Stephen. And so when white people in
    particular, you know, school districts,
  • 71:49 - 71:53
    mental health facilities, county districts,
    they'll say Dr., Dr. Degruy, we want to be,
  • 71:53 - 71:57
    you know, we have an equity standard
    here, we want to have representation.
  • 71:57 - 72:01
    We want to make certain that our staff is
    reflective of the -- you know, we want to have,
  • 72:01 - 72:03
    you know -- in other words, we
    want to hire people of color.
  • 72:03 - 72:04
    I'm going, really?
  • 72:04 - 72:05
    Who's going to hire them?
  • 72:05 - 72:06
    Well, we are.
  • 72:06 - 72:09
    What makes you think you can?
  • 72:09 - 72:11
    Because I already know who you're
    going to hire, the data's in.
  • 72:12 - 72:16
    So you need to get Black people to vet whoever
    the person of color is you're talking about.
  • 72:17 - 72:19
    And that happens in every group, by the way.
  • 72:20 - 72:20
    Every group gets this.
  • 72:20 - 72:23
    And we're all looking, and
    shaking our heads, going Lord.
  • 72:23 - 72:26
    And this is the Black person
    that doesn't even want
  • 72:26 - 72:29
    to accidentally see Black people during the day.
  • 72:30 - 72:34
    But that's how it shows up, you see?
  • 72:34 - 72:36
    Because everybody goes, but we
    have your Black representative.
  • 72:37 - 72:40
    But those Black representatives
    have post traumatic slave syndrome.
  • 72:40 - 72:45
    And I almost feel like if you like
    them, there's probably a problem.
  • 72:45 - 72:51
    So you need someone to even come in
    to vet them before you can hire them.
  • 72:51 - 72:52
    Does that make sense?
  • 72:52 - 72:55
    But you see, we don't have this
    conversation, we pretend it's not true.
  • 72:55 - 73:01
    We pretend and we are in an
    environment of hostility all the time.
  • 73:01 - 73:05
    Students, faculty, everyone
    has to deal with that person.
  • 73:05 - 73:08
    Matter of fact, sometimes Black
    conscious, woke Black folks,
  • 73:08 - 73:11
    have to then warn the students
    about the Black person.
  • 73:12 - 73:15
    We've got to say, okay, let me
    just help you navigate this.
  • 73:16 - 73:20
    The reason I know it was because,
    you know, I work in universities.
  • 73:20 - 73:25
    I used to have to do the same thing, doesn't
    matter, every major institution got them.
  • 73:25 - 73:27
    They've got Stephen.
  • 73:28 - 73:31
    How many of you knew they put
    a Black man in the Bronx Zoo?
  • 73:32 - 73:37
    Hmm, again, not obscure, Ota
    Benga was placed in the Bronx Zoo.
  • 73:38 - 73:39
    He's from the Congo.
  • 73:39 - 73:42
    Eventually he was released,
    he shot himself in the head.
  • 73:42 - 73:44
    But let's look at who really defended him.
  • 73:44 - 73:45
    That would be the New York Times.
  • 73:45 - 73:50
    You don't quite understand the emotion which
    others are expressing, it's absurd to make moan
  • 73:50 - 73:54
    over the imagined humiliation and degradation
    Benga is suffering, the pygmies are very low
  • 73:54 - 73:57
    in the human scale, and the suggestion
    that Benga should be in a school instead
  • 73:57 - 74:00
    of a cage ignores a probability
    that school would be a place
  • 74:00 - 74:02
    in which he could draw no advantage whatever.
  • 74:02 - 74:05
    The idea that men are all much alike, except
    that they have had or lack opportunities
  • 74:05 - 74:08
    for getting an education out of
    books is now far out of date.
  • 74:08 - 74:09
    They supported it.
  • 74:09 - 74:11
    But this wasn't during slavery, this was 1906.
  • 74:13 - 74:14
    Hidden in plain sight.
  • 74:14 - 74:17
    And then they wondered why we
    might have had a problem with this.
  • 74:17 - 74:20
    This is the first Black man ever to
    appear on the cover of Vogue Magazine.
  • 74:20 - 74:22
    That would be LeBron James.
  • 74:23 - 74:26
    And when Vogue Magazine was confronted
    with the similarities between the picture
  • 74:27 - 74:31
    that they had him pose for, and that of
    the brute, they said, oh coincidence.
  • 74:31 - 74:34
    Well look closely, they got
    it down to the blue dress.
  • 74:35 - 74:37
    And they had to tell LeBron to open his mouth.
  • 74:38 - 74:41
    But you see, LeBron probably
    did not know about, well that.
  • 74:42 - 74:44
    Because if he had, he wouldn't have done that.
  • 74:45 - 74:49
    And most of you didn't know that there
    were human zoos throughout Europe.
  • 74:49 - 74:56
    Here's one from 1958, they're feeding this
    little girl a banana in a zoo, in Brussels.
  • 74:57 - 75:00
    I was born in '57, just saying.
  • 75:00 - 75:02
    So, where did slavery go?
  • 75:03 - 75:06
    Well, the first thing that happened
    after slavery ended was, it didn't.
  • 75:07 - 75:10
    It was peonage, the unlawful
    selling of people back into slavery.
  • 75:10 - 75:12
    You know, hence 12 Years a Slave.
  • 75:12 - 75:13
    Well, it wasn't just him.
  • 75:14 - 75:17
    Then that was followed by
    Black codes and sundown laws,
  • 75:17 - 75:21
    saying you might be free,
    but you better not come here.
  • 75:21 - 75:25
    Then this was moved into convict
    leasing, we want to know about that,
  • 75:26 - 75:31
    look at the new documentary
    by Ava DuVernay, 13th,
  • 75:31 - 75:36
    or the new Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander.
  • 75:36 - 75:37
    It'll get clear for you.
  • 75:38 - 75:41
    So we need to understand that
    what followed slavery was trauma.
  • 75:41 - 75:44
    I want you to look closely at this, because
    I want to unpack this just for a moment.
  • 75:44 - 75:47
    I want you to look at this picture,
    these pictures aren't in my book,
  • 75:47 - 75:49
    very deliberately not in my book.
  • 75:49 - 75:54
    But I want you to look at it, not because I want
    you to feel, you know, uncomfortable and queasy,
  • 75:54 - 75:55
    I want you to look at who's in the photo.
  • 75:55 - 75:56
    It's a famous photo, actually.
  • 75:57 - 76:00
    I want you to see that the people are
    in white because they've been to what?
  • 76:00 - 76:02
    And after church they went to the?
  • 76:03 - 76:04
    And look at how everyone is there.
  • 76:04 - 76:08
    Let me put this in perspective for you for
    trauma, so if there was a puppy that ran
  • 76:08 - 76:13
    in here, let's just get that nice little
    yellow lab, runs in and starts flipping
  • 76:13 - 76:14
    around and licking people's ankles.
  • 76:15 - 76:18
    And I take some of the wires up here
    and I wrap it around that puppy's neck,
  • 76:18 - 76:22
    and I hold it up in front of you
    until it chokes, gasps, and dies.
  • 76:23 - 76:27
    Two things will happen, one, I'd be
    arrested faster than if it was a Black man
  • 76:27 - 76:30
    on the other side, and number
    two, you'd be traumatized.
  • 76:30 - 76:33
    Look closely at this photo, because no one is.
  • 76:34 - 76:35
    He is less than a deer.
  • 76:35 - 76:39
    People often ask me, Joy, what
    did 339 yours do to Black people?
  • 76:39 - 76:42
    Well, this is what 339 years
    of trauma did to white people.
  • 76:42 - 76:43
    Can't feel it.
  • 76:44 - 76:46
    Hence Katrina, can't feel it.
  • 76:46 - 76:49
    Can intellectualize it, but can't feel it.
  • 76:49 - 76:49
    Are you following me?
  • 76:49 - 76:52
    Because there's no way you can
    be that close to a human being
  • 76:52 - 76:54
    and feel nothing except that he is nothing.
  • 76:55 - 76:57
    And that is how you resolve
    the dissonance you see,
  • 76:57 - 77:01
    is you dehumanize so it's
    not quite that bad for them.
  • 77:01 - 77:05
    To this day, 2013 research
    into hospitals, doctors,
  • 77:05 - 77:09
    who believe Black people feel less pain.
  • 77:09 - 77:12
    Hence the new epidemic in heroin addiction
  • 77:12 - 77:17
    and then the following pharmaceutical opioid
    medications, all that's for white people.
  • 77:17 - 77:19
    They're calling it accidental poisonings.
  • 77:19 - 77:20
    We call them ODs.
  • 77:21 - 77:23
    But the white people are now
    getting addicted to heroin.
  • 77:23 - 77:26
    Why? Because of an over prescribing of opiates.
  • 77:26 - 77:30
    Then the research, New York Times, look it
    up, New York Times looked up, said well wow!
  • 77:30 - 77:34
    Why are all these young, white
    students becoming addicted to heroin?
  • 77:34 - 77:38
    Why aren't there more Mexicans,
    and Asians, and Black people?
  • 77:39 - 77:41
    Because of racism we are denied opiates.
  • 77:42 - 77:46
    Because the assumption is we're trying to sell
    them or we're really not in that much pain.
  • 77:46 - 77:46
    That's a fact.
  • 77:47 - 77:49
    So, racism helped us this time.
  • 77:49 - 77:53
    Look at this picture, even worse.
  • 77:53 - 77:57
    You see, these are the pictures, we have
    these notions of hooded folks on horses
  • 77:57 - 78:00
    with toothless, no, no, no,
    these are regular folks.
  • 78:01 - 78:03
    Thousands of people participated in lynchings.
  • 78:03 - 78:04
    Thousands.
  • 78:08 - 78:10
    Now, here's a question.
  • 78:10 - 78:14
    When I first saw these photos, they're all
    actually in a book called, Without Sanctuary.
  • 78:14 - 78:17
    But I wondered, my God, did
    they get them from an attic?
  • 78:17 - 78:18
    Were they in a basement?
  • 78:18 - 78:19
    These are postcards.
  • 78:20 - 78:22
    That's why we have them.
  • 78:22 - 78:23
    Postcards.
  • 78:24 - 78:29
    So, when you start talking about,
    so when did the trauma end?
  • 78:32 - 78:40
    Contrary to popular opinion, trauma of slavery,
    trauma of lynching, all over the United States.
  • 78:41 - 78:43
    Then you had sharecropping, right?
  • 78:43 - 78:45
    Because we're going to bring
    us all the way up to 2017.
  • 78:46 - 78:48
    Sharecropping, these are people who went back,
  • 78:48 - 78:53
    went back to their former slave
    owners, why would you do that?
  • 78:53 - 78:55
    Well, you might be free, but
    you better not come here.
  • 78:55 - 78:59
    This is taken from the Constitution in
    the state of Oregon, where I worked,
  • 78:59 - 79:02
    "No free Negro Mulatto not residing in
    the state at the time of the adoption
  • 79:02 - 79:05
    of this constitution shall come, reside, be
    within the state holding any real estate,
  • 79:05 - 79:07
    make any contracts, or maintain
    any suit therein.
  • 79:07 - 79:12
    And the Legislative Assembly should provide
    by penile laws with removal by public officers
  • 79:12 - 79:16
    of all such degrees and mulattos, and for
    their effectual exclusion from the state
  • 79:16 - 79:19
    and for the punishment of persons who
    shall bring them in the state, implore --
  • 79:20 - 79:22
    this was repealed November 3, 1926.
  • 79:22 - 79:23
    My father was alive.
  • 79:24 - 79:25
    But we're free, aren't we?
  • 79:26 - 79:27
    Can't I go north?
  • 79:27 - 79:31
    Maybe if you people worked harder, if you
    pulled yourselves up from your bootstraps.
  • 79:32 - 79:36
    What if I stand on my constitutional
    right that I have the right to be there?
  • 79:36 - 79:41
    That, if any free Negroes or Mulattos shall
    fail to put the country as required by this act,
  • 79:41 - 79:46
    if guilty upon trial, shall receive upon his
    or her back not less than -- We'll beat you!
  • 79:47 - 79:48
    But aren't we free?
  • 79:49 - 79:52
    Hasn't the playing field
    been leveled for you people?
  • 79:52 - 79:55
    See that's the mythology,
    because we don't know our history.
  • 79:56 - 79:57
    Or our present.
  • 79:58 - 79:59
    We don't know it.
  • 79:59 - 80:01
    So that's why they went well back.
  • 80:02 - 80:03
    And guess what happens to them?
  • 80:03 - 80:04
    They couldn't read or?
  • 80:05 - 80:07
    So, we said oh, I know you don't have anything,
  • 80:07 - 80:09
    I'm going to advance you
    tools, seed, and a mule.
  • 80:09 - 80:12
    Don't worry about it, we'll
    settle up at the end of the year.
  • 80:12 - 80:14
    What happened at the end of the year?
  • 80:14 - 80:15
    Well, they were found owing.
  • 80:15 - 80:17
    Well, how do you settle that debt?
  • 80:17 - 80:21
    Which is another form of?
  • 80:21 - 80:22
    But you all are free.
  • 80:23 - 80:27
    It's a mythology, you see,
    this causes dissonance.
  • 80:28 - 80:30
    Because nobody believes it's true.
  • 80:30 - 80:33
    So I'm going to move all the
    way forward, I wish I had time.
  • 80:33 - 80:35
    I just simply don't.
  • 80:36 - 80:42
    Convict leasing, big business
    then, big business now.
  • 80:43 - 80:48
    Companies that employ slave labor,
    oh, I'm sorry, prison labor.
  • 80:52 - 80:57
    Jim Crow, separate but equal, ever been equal?
  • 80:57 - 81:00
    Still separate now though, isn't it?
  • 81:00 - 81:03
    I'm sure there's a Black
    community here somewhere.
  • 81:03 - 81:07
    But there's no sign on your
    freeway that says, next right, hood.
  • 81:08 - 81:10
    But you always know when
    you're in the hood, don't you?
  • 81:11 - 81:13
    Because instead of banks you
    see check cashing places,
  • 81:13 - 81:15
    and then there are liquor stores,
    and then of course, churches.
  • 81:16 - 81:16
    How come I know?
  • 81:17 - 81:21
    We also know that police use of
    deadly force is a major problem.
  • 81:21 - 81:24
    I just don't have time to talk about it all.
  • 81:24 - 81:32
    But I want to say this, that one last thing
    I want to share and then I will close it.
  • 81:32 - 81:35
    Because again, can't do it in
    45 minutes, nor should we be.
  • 81:37 - 81:39
    But that's just how we have to do it.
  • 81:40 - 81:43
    There's something called epigenetics.
  • 81:44 - 81:50
    Now my work, you know, nine years of research,
    and I look specifically at violence, actually.
  • 81:50 - 81:54
    I gave and created some empirical
    evidence and some measurement.
  • 81:55 - 81:58
    A measurement tool, called the Respect
    Scale, which I won't have time to cover.
  • 81:58 - 82:02
    But I want to talk about epigenics because
    you see, my work has to deal with, you know,
  • 82:02 - 82:05
    multigenerational trauma,
    socialization, and social learning.
  • 82:06 - 82:11
    Behavior can be affected by events in
    previous generations which have been passed
  • 82:11 - 82:14
    on through a form of genetic memory,
    animal and human studies suggest.
  • 82:14 - 82:18
    This came out of recent research, where
    they took a rat, and they accustomed
  • 82:18 - 82:21
    that particular rat to develop
    an aversion for peppermint.
  • 82:22 - 82:25
    So, they basically shocked the
    rat, you know what they do,
  • 82:25 - 82:27
    they release the smell, shock the rat.
  • 82:27 - 82:31
    Creates an aversion, reinforcement,
    conditioned response.
  • 82:32 - 82:34
    Then they said, well, let's check the babies.
  • 82:34 - 82:39
    So they checked the babies of that particular
    rat, and the babies were born with an aversion
  • 82:39 - 82:41
    to peppermint, having never been exposed.
  • 82:42 - 82:44
    And then they checked the
    grandbabies of that rat.
  • 82:44 - 82:48
    And the grandbabies of the
    rat were born with an aversion
  • 82:48 - 82:51
    to peppermint, having never been exposed to it.
  • 82:51 - 82:55
    And they realize now that
    trauma is trapped in the DNA.
  • 82:56 - 83:00
    A body of research shows that your
    DNA may contain a biological memory
  • 83:00 - 83:02
    of the stress your grandparents endured.
  • 83:02 - 83:07
    Can trauma, stress, and even nightmares be
    passed down from generation to generation?
  • 83:07 - 83:08
    Scientists say, yes.
  • 83:09 - 83:13
    The findings provide evidence of
    transgenerational epigenetic inheritance
  • 83:13 - 83:17
    that the environment can effect an individual's
    genetics, which can in turn be passed on.
  • 83:17 - 83:21
    As previously explained, significant
    life-threatening experiences alter genetic
  • 83:21 - 83:26
    coding, and this is heritable in subsequent
    generations, therefore, it stands to reason
  • 83:26 - 83:31
    that a child conceived post-trauma will
    acquire this adaptive genetic information.
  • 83:32 - 83:36
    So again, you can't break my leg
    and then complain that I'm limping.
  • 83:36 - 83:40
    And what we have to understand
    is, everyone is broken.
  • 83:41 - 83:45
    There's a reason why white people
    cannot feel for Black people.
  • 83:46 - 83:50
    I'm not talking about intellectualize
    it, rationalize it, they can't feel it.
  • 83:51 - 83:52
    And to me that is pathology.
  • 83:53 - 83:58
    Similarly, you have Black people who have,
    are hypersensitive, struggle in schools
  • 83:58 - 84:08
    and institutions, feel disconnected, feel
    unwanted, feel disrespected, feel fear.
  • 84:08 - 84:15
    It is trapped in the DNA, and we've got to
    do a whole lot more than Black history month.
  • 84:16 - 84:23
    So I think, again, I have probably 100
    more slides, but I will end with this one.
  • 84:23 - 84:29
    They're just so much, you see how much I was
    going to kind of -- It does take a village.
  • 84:29 - 84:31
    But please don't say that,
    if you've never been to one.
  • 84:32 - 84:34
    If one more person tells me that
    that's never been to a village.
  • 84:35 - 84:39
    So this is my granddaughter, we started
    working with her at 2 years old to teach her
  • 84:39 - 84:44
    to love herself, because of what we knew she
    was going to have to impact in the world.
  • 84:44 - 84:49
    Not just from white people, but from Black
    people, who are injured with post traumatic.
  • 84:49 - 84:54
    So we got her involved in positive racial
    socialization activities, you know,
  • 84:54 - 84:57
    this is Portland, Oregon, there's only four
    Black people, I guess they were all there.
  • 84:59 - 85:04
    Her father developed a basketball camp for
    her, because well, there wasn't one there
  • 85:04 - 85:08
    and we started, I started to look at
    this notion of light skin and good hair.
  • 85:08 - 85:13
    You know, there are a number of videos that
    you should take a look at, A Girl Like Me,
  • 85:13 - 85:16
    and Dark Girls, Billy Duke, who's a friend.
  • 85:17 - 85:20
    When I went to Ghana, when
    I went to Ghana I noticed
  • 85:20 - 85:23
    that the children didn't have
    any hair, so I mentioned it.
  • 85:23 - 85:25
    I said, I notice the children
    don't have any hair.
  • 85:26 - 85:27
    People said, they're in school.
  • 85:28 - 85:30
    I said, yeah, but you know,
    they don't got no hair.
  • 85:30 - 85:34
    They go, well they're in school,
    what are you talking about?
  • 85:34 - 85:35
    I went, okay.
  • 85:35 - 85:36
    So maybe it's the little ones.
  • 85:36 - 85:38
    Well, no, there's middle school kids, no hair.
  • 85:38 - 85:42
    I'm going wow, maybe it's the
    -- nope, it's the high school.
  • 85:42 - 85:46
    And that young woman was looking at me,
    gave me permission to take that picture.
  • 85:46 - 85:49
    But you don't get a sense of
    confusion about their Blackness.
  • 85:49 - 85:51
    And they're not preoccupied with hair.
  • 85:52 - 85:53
    So it's not an African thing.
  • 85:53 - 86:00
    In this village, the young woman,
    Michele Yeboah, who is seated next
  • 86:00 - 86:03
    to the two little girls, one's
    drinking water, that's her village.
  • 86:03 - 86:08
    The man was looking off to the side,
    that's the chief of that village.
  • 86:09 - 86:14
    And everywhere we went, Michele's, the
    women would follow her and surround her,
  • 86:14 - 86:15
    and just start crying and screaming.
  • 86:15 - 86:18
    We didn't know what they were saying,
    because it was in another language.
  • 86:18 - 86:19
    I was traveling with a group of other scholars.
  • 86:20 - 86:22
    And we didn't know what was going on.
  • 86:22 - 86:28
    But what turns out is the matrilineal
    matriarchal society and the next chief has
  • 86:28 - 86:30
    to come through her, and she hasn't had a child.
  • 86:30 - 86:32
    And they were very upset with her about that.
  • 86:33 - 86:37
    So, I snapped this picture of these
    men, had never seen this before,
  • 86:38 - 86:39
    it was a whole group of men babysitting.
  • 86:40 - 86:40
    I'd never seen it.
  • 86:40 - 86:41
    Not a woman in sight.
  • 86:42 - 86:43
    All men were babysitting.
  • 86:43 - 86:46
    So I took the picture, and this
    is a zoom lens, really far away.
  • 86:46 - 86:49
    The man holding the baby saw me take the
    picture and he started walking towards me.
  • 86:50 - 86:57
    Fast. So I put the camera down and --
    you know -- my heart started beating,
  • 86:57 - 86:58
    I'm going, Joy what have you done?
  • 86:58 - 87:02
    You fool. And the man walks up to
    me and I'm thinking I'm, you know,
  • 87:02 - 87:04
    I must have done something wrong.
  • 87:04 - 87:05
    And my heart's beating.
  • 87:05 - 87:07
    He doesn't say anything to me,
    hands me the baby and he leaves.
  • 87:07 - 87:13
    So I'm holding that little baby you see
    there and the man going, going, gone.
  • 87:13 - 87:15
    So I'm thinking, surely he's coming back.
  • 87:16 - 87:19
    After about 20 minutes he didn't come back.
  • 87:19 - 87:21
    Everybody's gone except me and the baby.
  • 87:22 - 87:24
    So I'm, it's okay, okay.
  • 87:24 - 87:26
    So I go inside to the house where
    I'm staying, and I sit down.
  • 87:27 - 87:30
    And the women are, you know, and men, and
    everybody's talking, and people I'm traveling
  • 87:30 - 87:33
    with are looking at me and they're,
    you know, handing out refreshments.
  • 87:33 - 87:34
    Does anybody ask me about the baby?
  • 87:34 - 87:37
    They know I didn't come there
    with a baby, right?
  • 87:37 - 87:39
    So I'm sitting there, the baby falls asleep.
  • 87:39 - 87:41
    So my friends are like, Joy,
    what's with the baby?
  • 87:41 - 87:42
    I'm going, I don't know.
  • 87:42 - 87:53
    So there after about 45 minutes, the baby starts
    stirring, and I'm going, is this now my baby?
  • 87:53 - 87:56
    What's going on?
  • 87:56 - 88:03
    Where's Children Protective
    Services when you need them?
  • 88:03 - 88:07
    And you know, then I'm going, when the
    baby wakes up, what am I supposed to do?
  • 88:07 - 88:08
    Am I supposed to feed the baby?
  • 88:08 - 88:10
    What if the baby's wet?
  • 88:10 - 88:13
    What am I supposed to do with the baby?
  • 88:13 - 88:15
    I don't know what to do, right?
  • 88:15 - 88:23
    So after that, I'm a little sweaty, I'm
    just -- so I'm sitting there on the couch,
  • 88:23 - 88:35
    the baby is waking up, and someone reaches
    over, a young girl, 12 or 13, picks the baby up.
  • 88:35 - 88:41
    I'm sitting down, she lifts the
    baby up and walks out the door.
  • 88:41 - 88:45
    I'm going, oh no, no, no, no, no,
    that's not how this is going to work.
  • 88:46 - 88:48
    So I go out there, and I say
    to him, couldn't help noticing
  • 88:48 - 88:51
    that you gave me this baby and then you left.
  • 88:51 - 88:55
    He said, you took a picture of
    baby, I figured you wanted the baby.
  • 88:55 - 88:57
    That was it, there was no other conversation.
  • 88:57 - 89:02
    He didn't know me, my name, he only knew
    one thing and whose house I came out of.
  • 89:02 - 89:03
    That's a village.
  • 89:03 - 89:09
    And that's a village I grew up in.
  • 89:09 - 89:13
    I grew up in a village in
    South Central Los Angeles,
  • 89:13 - 89:18
    where my daddy would tell you,
    bad news will beat you home.
  • 89:18 - 89:25
    Because Mr. Isador could check you, and the
    lady who lived across the street who was
  • 89:25 - 89:29
    from some other country, white family, spoke
    a language we never figured out what it was,
  • 89:29 - 89:31
    but she would feed our dog when we left.
  • 89:31 - 89:31
    We had a community.
  • 89:31 - 89:32
    We had a remnant of a society.
  • 89:32 - 89:33
    And it worked.
  • 89:33 - 89:34
    So yeah, we need to build village.
  • 89:34 - 89:34
    It's the village that will help us.
  • 89:34 - 89:37
    But I think that for me, when I was standing
    out, and some of you probably were there,
  • 89:37 - 89:39
    when I stood out the Door of No Return, and
    I was looking out, looking at these fishermen
  • 89:39 - 89:41
    out fishing, doing what they had been doing for
    generations, and I read a proverb that says,
  • 89:41 - 89:42
    "If you wish to go fast, then go alone.
  • 89:42 - 89:43
    But if you wish to go far, go together."
  • 89:43 - 89:44
    Let's go together.
  • 89:44 - 89:44
    Thank you so much.
Title:
Joy DeGruy
Description:

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Video Language:
English (United States)
Duration:
01:30:46

English (United States) subtitles

Revisions