The Violence of Low Expectations | Talisha Ramsaroop | TEDxYorkU
today I'd like to tell you a little bit about my community I come from a community where it's estimated that there are about 120 languages spoken and I could tell you from personal experience that you could get just about any type of food you'd like but for some reason people assume that we let our children go hungry I come from a community where within a 5minute walk walk you can go from a bustling and vibrant City street to a green Ravine yet we are portrayed as a bleak ghetto in my community mothers care not just for their own children but for all the children of the community they provide support advice and inspiration to anybody who asks and most of the time we don't even need to ask they just know yet they're seen as welfare queens and it's assumed that all we have is broken families I come from a community where activists share their knowledge do complex Rhymes colors splashed onto a canvas or words which resonate from their mouths yet people are assumed that our youth have nothing of value to say and refuse to listen to them I come from a community where Elders are right there on the front lines advocating for Change and sharing their knowledge with future change makers yet people assume that the only tools we have are guns gangs and drugs I come from a community with a large youth population our youth are resilient they are empowering and they are inspiring and trust me when I say that Within These few blocks we have so much passion so much capability and so much power I come from the Jane Finch Community unlike any other community it has its flaws there are structural forms of Oppression which demean people on The Daily including violence racism and poverty but this is not our only story there is no Community out there without its flaws just as there is no Community out there without it Brilliance its value and its vibrancy so why is it that janen Finch gets the rep that it does a rep which neglects our assets and portrays us as a deficit a rup has which has real and serious consequences because it's a form of stigma and the stigma is a form of violence because after a while we start to believe it and that's a problem I came to Jan Finch with my mom when I was two I remember in school in high school I was a sea student and I had no desire to be something and I feel like this is because I was subjected to the violence of low expectations what I mean by this is that I did not expect more from myself and others did not expect more from me nobody saw me as extraordinary nobody saw my community as extraordinary when I turned on the news and saw my community on the TV we were not portrayed as extraordinary we are portrayed as violent deviant and gang members when I told people where I lived I did not get the usual questions teenagers get most people get questions like where do you want to go to school or what do you want to be when you grow up I got questions like have you ever seen somebody shot or do you own a gun this is what was expected of me and this is what was expected of everybody that I grew up with this stigma followed me when I came to York I remember my first week of school and it was frost week I'd seen this on movies so many time and times and I was so excited to be here that is until one question happened one of the younger students asked one of the frost bosses who are senior students where do you go for groceries it seems like a simple question until the frost boss replied there's a place on Keel and there's a place on Jan and Finch but you don't want to go there because that is where everybody gets shot I remember telling one of my classmates where I lived and I watched her gas for air and I could literally see her expectations of me drop this was hair this was York these are students and these people they saw as violent as deving as criminals that was me my friends my little brother my family and I'm sure all of us in this room have been stigmatized in some way it may have been the color of your hair which made somebody assume that there was no possible way that you could be intelligent or maybe it was your gender which made somebody assume that you could not open the door or that you could not show any emotion maybe it was your religion which made somebody assume that you were a terrorist maybe it was your sexual orientation which made somebody assume that you could not be masculine or feminine feminine or maybe it was a mental illness which made people avoid you rather than assist you so let me ask you this how did it feel that moment that you realize that you were a victim of stigma some say that it's like a slap to their face others say it's like a kick to the gut for me it felt like I was being chained down like I every time I tried to get up I was pushed back down and kept down by these chains and let me ask you another question how did it feel the fifth the 6th the 7th the 10th the 20th the 50th time when you realized you were being stereotyped how did it feel when it stopped being a stereotype and it started being just the way things were now imagine that it wasn't just you it was your entire community and on The Daily you were being told that all you can ever be is less than on the daily you are being told that you should never try imagine the effects of that I think we as people need to dig a dip deep dig a dip bit deeper when we hear these stories of communities which are innately violent or are filled with just criminals we need to be more critical because we are implicit in the violence which is inflicted on the youth when they begin to see themselves as just criminal we are responsible for this potential that's wasted when youth do not see themselves as more and I think that we need to see that these individuals are just that individuals not a not a statistic not a label not a stereotype just an individual for me this happened in high school when one of my teachers told me that I was more that I could be more and that I could do more and there are tons of Youth within Jane and frch and people within Jane and frch who are doing this kind of thing whether it's through ART spoken word poetry whatever it is they're doing something to combat the stigma to provide counter narratives and to Define themselves by themselves I'd like to think that's what I'm doing here today on this stage but it isn't enough if after today if after this talk you leave and you still think of Jane and fines somewhere that is innately violent somewhere where you will get shot somewhere where nobody good can come from we cannot debunk the stigma alone we cannot do it if people are not open-minded and others need to realize that we are just people with skills and with potentials with hopes and with dreams and that we are equal and that's why I think that it's so important to keep spreading this message to let it Roch shade throughout the city throughout the country through TV screens and from within I would like to encourage everybody in this room today to think of Jan and Finch as a center of the universe which is one of what something my Elder calls it he once told me that Toronto is an indigenous word which means meeting place and today it has literally come to become a meeting place it's the most diverse City on the world in the world and it's where everybody comes together to meet but within Toronto there was one Community which is known for its racial diversity there's one Community which is known to be the home for newcomers and that is Jan and Finch that is where we come together to me and that is the center of the universe thank you