00:03I was finally home I had just moved back
00:15from Johannesburg South Africa where I
00:17had been living for two years I was
00:20Thanksgiving was a few days away and I
00:22was sitting it on the couch with my dad
00:23watching the news coming out of Ferguson
00:26Michael Brown was dead and they had just
00:28decided not to indict Darren Wilson not
00:32even give him a trial what my dad looked
00:37at me and he said what did you expect to
00:40happen I mean if it was dark and a black
00:43guy came at me with something in his
00:45hand and a hood on I mean I could have
00:48I stood up shaking and I looked at my
00:55dad and before I ran out of the room I
00:58said you are a racist I didn't
01:06understand how my dad could have said
01:07that his dad was a Dixiecrat defense
01:10lawyer like Atticus Finch and to kill a
01:12he'd spent his whole life fighting for
01:14justice and equality that was the reason
01:17why I had gone on to study racism as an
01:19American Studies major in college at the
01:21University of Virginia but the racism
01:25that I studied was an extreme slave
01:28owners were racist Ku Klux Klan members
01:31were racist separate-but-equal racist
01:33but me my family we were good so how
01:40would I just called my dad a racist
01:44conflicted I needed to figure it out
01:46and when I learned is that racism is not
01:52it is not binary instead it is a
01:55spectrum and we are all wired to be on
02:00it but when we talk about racism we put
02:04up walls so to take those walls down
02:07today we're gonna coin a new term we're
02:09gonna call it Oh didi other deficit
02:15with a deficit of the other in our lives
02:18we have a disorder that causes us to
02:20unintentionally avoid discriminate and
02:23harm this is how we're wired we get OD D
02:29from two sources direct experience and
02:31indirect exposure to stereotypes when I
02:34reflected on my OD D I realized that I
02:38started when I was five now I was about
02:41to start school and I was still sucking
02:45my thumb and my mom who's here in the
02:47audience is probably still embarrassed
02:49she was horrified so she went she
02:52consulted her brother-in-law my uncle
02:54Robert and he had a solution you see
02:57uncle Robert was Chinese and he had a
02:59secret potion that he painted on both of
03:01my thumbs that made them taste like
03:04rotting Brussels sprouts from that
03:11moment I needed uncle Robert and from my
03:17limited five-year-old perspective I
03:19didn't know any other Chinese people so
03:21I thought that all Chinese people were
03:22bad and should be avoided and it sounds
03:26silly but 20 years later I looked around
03:29I still didn't have any clothes Chinese
03:32friends this is how we're wired this is
03:37made even worse every day by the
03:39indirect stereotypes that we absorb in
03:42American media for example black men
03:44play violent roles 56 percent of the
03:47time while white men play them only 11
03:49percent Asian men on the other hand are
03:52often portrayed as effeminate nerds but
03:55why it goes back to 1850 San Francisco
04:00when 4000 Chinese immigrants flooded
04:02into the city and only two were women
04:06white men felt threatened by these new
04:09eligible bachelors and so they used
04:11political cartoons to brand them as a
04:13feminine making fun of them for doing
04:15girly work even though those were the
04:17only jobs available as a result the
04:20American public came to expect Asian men
04:22who might be good at math but not at
04:24wooing women all because white men
04:29150 years ago were afraid of losing
04:31their ladies this is how were wired
04:35I mentioned that I studied racism in
04:39college but while I spent afternoons in
04:42the library getting all fired up about
04:43the injustice of separate but equal I
04:45came home to a different kind I was in a
04:50sorority in college was actually
04:52president of my sorority in college and
04:54I know a lot of you are already bringing
04:56negative stereotypes in to make
04:57judgements about me but we won't talk
04:59about that today but aside from all of
05:05the negatives there are a lot of
05:06positives too and one of the positives
05:08is that you get to live with all of your
05:10best friends all the time but when I
05:14think back to that house of 146 people
05:22there is only one person of color Lamont
05:37we hadn't tried to keep the other out
05:42but we had tried to bring people like us
05:47in the result is discrimination and you
05:53don't lose that bias when you're looking
05:55for friends looking to hire someone or
05:57looking for a life partner this is how
06:01we're wired even more dangerous than
06:06discrimination though is unintentional
06:08harm Stanford psychologist Jennifer
06:11Eberhardt studies implicit racial bias
06:13and its impact on our behavior in one
06:15study she showed participants images of
06:17either black men or white men and then
06:20uh fuzzy images of objects that slowly
06:23became clear as a result when the
06:29objects were crime-related and
06:31participants had been shown images of
06:33black men they were able to identify
06:35them that much faster
06:36Eber Hart's work suggests that we are
06:39culturally conditioned to associate
06:41black men with crime so my dad may have
06:48been right about the impact that culture
06:51had had on him we are all wired with OD
06:59D and asking yourself where am I on this
07:03spectrum is a really hard question to
07:05ask because the answer often hurts when
07:10I talk about this I feel sad and I feel
07:14a tremendous amount of shame but when
07:18I'm able to separate myself Who I am
07:21from the mistakes I've made and the
07:23mistakes that were made before me I feel
07:26empowered and the most important message
07:29I have for you today is that no matter
07:31how we're wired on this spectrum we have
07:34an opportunity to do some rewiring the
07:40turning point for me
07:41came when I moved to South Africa and
07:45when you start talking about it it's
07:47okay to say I'm white you're black it's
07:50not just okay it's necessary because
07:53when we tiptoe around the topics the way
07:55we do here we give them power by saying
07:58nothing the only thing you're doing is
08:00is making sure that nothing changes what
08:04if instead we stayed open we're curious
08:08ask questions and if we're uncomfortable
08:11as we will be it's okay
08:14today we're uncomfortable and then ask
08:16anyway because once we start the
08:19conversation then we can actually start
08:22to build the relationships that rewire
08:25racism when I arrived an African
08:29Leadership Academy to teach in
08:32Johannesburg I had created a situation
08:34accidentally in which I have become the
08:38other so much so that my students
08:43nicknamed me Leblanc as if I couldn't
08:47crack that code but after a few weeks at
08:53a la African other became Nigerian
08:57Rwandan Senegalese Kenyan individuals
09:00and when you can see diversity within an
09:04other racial group it becomes really
09:06hard to hold on to the stereotypes that
09:08you came in with that African other
09:13became some of my closest friends who I
09:16still talk to daily because when you're
09:20able to find common ground that's deeper
09:23than the color of your skin you're able
09:25to make connections that last longer -
09:31this is a process this is a hard process
09:36this is a long process this is something
09:40I'm still working on I'm still working
09:42on rewiring the OTD that I developed as
09:45a child by building a relationship with
09:48my roommate here at Stanford who is full
09:51of joy a fantastic cook looks awesome in
09:55hats and his Chinese she just happens to
09:59be a little bit nicer than uncle Robert
10:04I'm still working on this
10:08we all have Oh didi but when we stop
10:15accepting what others have shaped for us
10:18and start shaping it ourselves then we
10:23can rewire racism thank you
