00:05I want to take you back to the year 2010,
it's my senior year of high school and
00:10I'm in the final round of
a speech team tournament.
00:15Yes, I was the nerd in high school who
did speech he considered it a sport.
00:18[LAUGH]
>> There are five of the finalists in
00:21the room, 30 people there to watch us and
three judges sitting in the front row with
00:25their pens and
evaluation forms ready to go.
00:29And I'm there to give an eight
minute speech on racial diversity.
00:32So I deliver my speech,
listened to my competitors do the same,
00:35gave them a cute little bit
of applause and a fake smile.
00:41then we all headed to the auditorium
to hear the final results, and
00:45in first place, they announced,
Shawan Jackson.
00:49>> [LAUGH]
>> Of course I share that story because I
00:52want you to know how fabulous I am.
00:54really I share that story because
it was a moment of pride back then.
01:01But when I look back on that moment today,
01:04I'm not met with pride,
I actually feel regret.
01:08What I didn't mention at the beginning
of my talk is that, that speech
01:11wasn't advocating for racial diversity,
I essentially argued against it.
01:17To be fair,
I didn't say that diversity itself is bad,
01:20I just didn't understand the merits
of racial diversity in particular.
01:25In large part because I didn't understand
the full extent of racial inequity.
01:30Reflecting on this moment, I realized that
while I had strong communication skills
01:34back then,
I lacked critical consciousness.
01:37A term coined by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian
philosopher that speaks to one's
01:42ability to critically examine the world
and do something to change it.
01:46Realizing this inspired me to help other
youth, especially underserved youth,
01:51build not just their communication skills,
but also their critical consciousness.
01:56With the hope that they'll be able to
speak persuasively about social justice.
02:01But in doing this work,
02:02I've realized that critical consciousness
isn't just about challenging what you say,
02:08it's also about challenging how you
present yourself and your ideas.
02:14Now when I first started teaching public
speaking, I did not realize this,
02:18I used to teach my students
the control framework.
02:20It went a little something like this,
control your body stand up straight, relax
02:24your shoulders, make sure they're in line
with your feet gesture, but not too much.
02:28Control your voice, speak up,
pace yourself pause so that people really
02:33listen, okay, not that long-
>> [LAUGH]
02:35>> And enunciate every single word as you
02:39Now research shows that if
you do those behaviors,
02:42you actually do sound more persuasive.
02:45But the more I've been working
with youth of color, and
02:48the more I've been reflecting
on my own public speaking style,
02:52I realized that there's a point
when control becomes conformity,
02:55when the right way to speak
becomes the white way to do it.
03:00Now let me be clear I don't dislike the
way that white people speak, I love y'all.
03:07it saddens me that we have this
unstated expectation that,
03:10to be heard you have to make yourself
palatable to white majority culture.
03:15Maybe that means cutting out the black
vernacular you learned at home because
03:19it's not professional.
03:21Or maybe that means limiting your
expressions because you were told you need
03:27Or maybe it's cutting your Afro,
like I did in the eighth grade,
03:30because you learn that
it's not presentable.
03:34These behaviors reflect the concept
called respectability politics,
03:39when marginalized people present
themselves in ways that are pleasing or
03:43respectable to those with more privilege.
03:46On the one hand, this makes
complete sense, our world favors
03:51those who just fit in, and
as important as authenticity is,
03:56it comes with a risk of being judged,
of being ignored, of being silenced.
04:03And this is a risk that many people
care about, not just people of color.
04:07According to a 2014 inclusion report
from Deloitte, 83% of lesbian,
04:12gay and bisexual people in the US,
said they're not fully themselves at work.
04:1866% of woman said the same, and
so did 44% of straight White men.
04:24Many of us feel this pressure to conform,
04:28to avoid the risk of exclusion,
but conformity comes with a cost.
04:33Every time we change how we present,
04:35from the words we use to our tone to our
presentation, we validate the status quo
04:40that is not equally appreciate
multiple forms of presentation.
04:44We send a message to younger
generations that you can be heard, so
04:48long as you sound look and
dress more or less, like everyone else.
04:53The easy answer would be what don't
conform when you communicate,
04:57but it's not that straightforward.
04:59Because at times you do need to
accommodate your audience, so
05:02that you can make your perspective heard.
05:05I don't know the answer to this question
of how to deal with that, on the one hand,
05:10I do want to be authentic,
on the other hand, I want to be heard.
05:13Even as I'm standing here
in front of you right now,
05:16I'm wondering if the way I'm dressed and
the way I'm presenting is really me or
05:20just what I think you want me to be.
05:21And if I can't answer that question for
myself,
05:23who am I to talk to my students about it?
05:27One of my mentors said, you don't need
to have the perfect answer, Shawan.
05:30Just open up the conversation
with your students, so
05:33they can critically engage with the topic.
05:36So now in one of my classes
on public speaking,
05:38I read a series of statements and
ask students go to one side if you agree,
05:42another side of you disagree and somewhere
in the middle if you're conflicted.
05:47Agree or disagree, if I were giving
a speech in front of politicians,
05:51I would change my hair so
that I look more professional.
05:54Students spread out across the entire
room and began to debate their opinions.
05:59One of my Latino student said,
06:01I'm not going to straighten my curly
because that's a part of who I am.
06:05Another student respectfully disagrees and
says,
06:08it's not that big of a deal to me,
so I'm going to do it,
06:11we don't come to a perfect answer in
that activity, but that's not the goal.
06:16The goal is simply to question
whether persuasion can be problematic.
06:21In the same activity I read another
statement, agree or disagree,
06:25to make people care about a social issue,
I will share a sad story about myself.
06:31This leads to a critical
conversation about storytelling,
06:35too often we share those sad stories so
that people feel bad for us.
06:40And while those stories can be moving,
06:42they can often fall into this trap of
poverty porn, you know what that is.
06:47Those TV ads about those poor little
kids in Africa who need your donation,
06:51that story about a boy named Tony, who
grew up in Chicago in a rundown apartment
06:55in a single parent home who
will not make it in life,
06:58unless you donate to his nonprofit.
07:00That's poverty porn.
07:02Storytelling is a powerful tool of
persuasion, but the problem with poverty
07:07porn is that, it reduces your humanities
to the struggles you've endured.
07:12Without critically examining the
narratives we're putting forward, we risk
07:17diluting our self-worth, presenting an
incomplete picture of who we really are.
07:22And that's a problem, when I was
teaching public speaking last summer,
07:26I had a student who I won't soon forget,
Jose.
07:29He's a junior now,
Dominican American incredibly smart,
07:33and he ditched about half of my classes.
07:35>> [LAUGH]
>> So one day, I'm in the hallway with
07:38him and I take them to the side,
just to say what's going on.
07:43He told me he didn't like public speaking,
I figured just about as much, but
07:47his reason why is what really got to me.
07:51It doesn't matter how
much we speak up he said,
07:55at the end of the day, rich,
white people will always be in power.
08:00Deep down I fear that Jose is right,
not because rich,
08:03white people will literally always be
in power, but because if we're not
08:08mindful of how we're presenting,
how we're advocating for change,
08:12we risk changing the people in power, but
leaving the culture largely the same.
08:19So if I were talking to younger Shawan
today, I would tell them two things one,
08:23you're going to have that baby face for
the next 10 years, at least, I'm sorry.
08:28>> [LAUGH]
>> It is what it is.
08:31>> [LAUGH]
>> And two and more importantly,
08:35I would say that it's not
enough to change your topic for
08:38that speech team competition, to argue for
racial diversity instead of against it.
08:44You also need to critically question how
you're presenting yourself in that room,
08:49are you making yourself
conforming too much?
08:52How far are you willing to go?
08:55And I want Shawan to think about those
questions as a teenager because ten
08:59years later I want him to feel free and
comfortable to speak his own truth.
09:05The entire truth, not just because
it will make me feel better, but
09:09because when you speak your truth,
your whole truth,
09:13you empower everyone else around
you to do the same, thank you.
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