Transcript

Too Foreign For Here: The Life of a Black Sheep | Marcus Collins | TEDxUofM

hi hello do me a favor to your neighbor to say hello and then to your other neighbor just say hello alright now that we're all acquainted let's get started there's research that says that right around 7 years old is when we start to develop long-term memories that is the memories that we can recall once we're adults and look backwards the sustained memories if you will that sounds about right because it was right around 70 years old I can remember coming home and great delight saying to my mother mom that's all you talk mom the next time I go to the barbershop I want to get my hair cut like Erik Galvin this is Erik Galvin Erik Galvin is white I am NOT but Erik Galvan's hair would blow in the wind which I thought was just ridiculously cool and my hair just kind of stood there it's funny those things we take for Greta it looking back right but there I was making a declaration to my mom mom I want to get my hair cut like Eric gal van next time we go to the barber shop and my mom look at looks at me as if to say maybe you know you black right and of course I know that I'm black I knew that I was black I know that I am black look I grew up in Detroit arguably one of the blackest cities in the country of course another I'm black I went to public schools my entire life in Detroit some of the best public schools mind you of course I know that I'm black because in those public schools I was told that I had to be two times as good as the people in the suburbs if I were to compete and those people are the suburbs are people who didn't look like me who were not black of course I know their own plaque I was reminded this my thinking about the fact that my brother and I used to swim competitively that's well from six years old to 18 years old he throughout college and let me tell you ain't a whole lot of black people's women compared over just keeping it real but I can remember in those years swimming competitively feeling the awkward stares experiencing the passive aggressiveness overhearing the whispers that were laden with racial epithets I know that I'm black see even living in New York City where I live for six years or so I can remember more than I like to parking my car in a public parking garage probably parking structure and on my way out of the garage another patron walked by and give me his keys I know right mistaken me for a parking attendant I didn't have on a uniform I did have a bag too said hi I'm Marcus but yet because I'm black he thought that I worked there now look I got nothing against parking attendants there to swallow the earth but I was in a parking attendant in fact I have the great pleasure the great honor to work at this prestigious University as a faculty member that's right but I am reminded of my blackness when I look around the student population I don't see very many people who look like me not only in the population but among my peers as well as educators see not only do I work in an industry where there aren't a lot of black people there to remind me just how black I am I also work in advertising as an executive no less I work in advertising where there's only four point two percent before point one percent check that four point one percent of black people in the entire industry and I can feel it I could feel the doubt when I walk into a room for the first time and I can feel them questioning my intellect my ability my pedigree because I'm black and if that's not enough trust me there should be enough I'm reminded of the fact that I'm black when I consider that never met my paternal grandfather my father's father who was murdered in rural Arkansas in late 1940s because he too was black leaving my seven-year-old father and his twin brother and their siblings fatherless but this is where things get paradoxical because wow I've experienced all this time a salient sea of understanding my blackness when I've been a lug my peers growing up at the same time simultaneously among my peers who were also black I was called a white boy because I swam because I spent summers going to band camp right because I love the monkeys just as much as I love Tribe Called Quest the monkeys were great or because I excelled in school I was somehow diminishing my blackness and to make matters worse to exacerbate this issue I decided to fall in love and marry a woman who was not black and I was accused practically of betraying my race of unraveling the thread of the black community did this a few years ago I shared an article on Facebook from the New York Times that chronicled the increase in interracial marriages in the country I thought was interesting because I myself was in an interracial relationship and I shared this on Facebook I it was met with some delight some glee from some of my friends but one friend in particular friend I had known my entire life at that time 20-some odd years of close close friendship she chat this no this just kidding all right the glorification of interracial marriages is dangerous because it romanticizes diversity marriage is an institution for community building and it is not a decision based on love this was my friend of 20-some odd years who's supposed to know me so well and I saw this in horror because a I didn't see the world that way but I immediately thought of my soon-to-be wife and she was beside herself and rightfully so because this person who I cherished dearly didn't know me at all and one person replied with two sentences that thought was super powerful and I said this new America old habits and indeed this was an old habit because I've experienced this my entire life when I was among white people I was too black couldn't be any blacker among my own people I wasn't black enough one poet put it this way too foreign for home to foreign for here never enough for both what an isolating and lonely feeling what a feeling of loneliness now why does any of this matter it's a Friday night why does any of this matter it's pretty heavy I tell you I matters because my experience isn't unique to me there are tons of people who felt isolated alone like a black sheep because of their race their ethnicity their ethnicity their gender their sexuality their religion in fact Harris did a the Harris Poll did a recent study that showed that 72% of people in this country have cited feeling lonely in this hyper connected world or just a tweet in a snap away from everybody we feel alone and yet man by nature is a social animal as Aristotle will say we all just want to belong it's in the fabric of humanity to want to belong this reminds me of a trip I took last year to Hong Kong for the first time it's in Hong Kong and there I didn't feel any more out of place than I feel here in the United States in my country in my home which is both the liberating feeling and kind of sad but I remembered this remarkable thing happened I'm walking through the train station right so I'm walking through the train station in the metro and as I'm walking I see a white American down the way coming the opposite way of me right we're approaching each other and as we approach each other we lock eyes not that kind of way but we lock eyes we lock eyes and then it happened it happened he gave me the nod though nod the nod he gave me the nod y'all now for you guys for some of you guys who may not know the nod this is institution of higher learning but those guys may not know the nod the nod is an unwritten rule it's a social norm among african-american people black people black men in particular where you see you I don't even know you but we are minorities in this setting I see you dude you exist you matter and it works like this it's very simple we see someone who was black and you go like this or do the opposite what up it works both ways but you can imagine considering the experience that black people have had in this country where our existence let alone our rights didn't matter the nod is super man powerful and Here I am on the other side of the globe and a white man gives me the nod as if to say I see you you exist you matter and here we are more alike than we are different here you matter I've often heard stories from friends of mine who are first-generation immigrants they mean their parents came here searching for new opportunities for themselves and their family and they were the first of their family to be born here first-generation immigrants and Americans are born here and they assimilate they adopt to the culture of America the shared believes the social norms the unwritten rules the language the artifacts that we've done and as much as they adopt to the culture they still felt different they still felt like black sheep typically because of the way they look now on the flip side if they went to their parents home country their homeland they felt different there also because of the way they talked because of the way they act too foreign for home to foreign for here never enough for both now why is this matter I'll tell you why this matters it matters because that only do we all want to belong it's in the very DNA of people to connect anthropologists would argue that it was man's ability to socialize that allowed us to evolve the species one great poet said this dearly beloved we've gathered today to get through this thing called life and it's true and because of that everything about us drives us to connect in fact it's a part of the brain called the mirror neuron system whose job it is to mirror what it sees right the brain sees something that says wow that's pretty cool we should try that and then you try it right like Freud would say that thought is just action and rehearsal you see it and before long you take on the behavior that's why yawning is so contagious you see someone yawn your brain goes whoa dude we've got to try that and before long you're yawning we're mirror what we see it's the same reason why we're watching a horror movie we see this we're like watch out going I'll kill you because your brain is practicing but it might feel like if you like Liv Tyler in that situation or my wife watches The Notebook she just sobs oh she just balls because in her mind she's practicing what it might feel like to be loved by Ryan Gosling and that's totally cool totally cool the movie came out before we started dating it's all good I'm strong in my manhood it's all good but here's the thing we've mirror what we see because mimicking art people brings us closer together it allows us to be much more empathetic strengthening a covalent bonds between our people because we all want to belong it's probably why black people in particular have the uncanny ability to code-switch and that is we can adopt a way to talk the way to act we with certain people for instance if I get a call from a number I don't recognize I answer the phone like this hello this is Marcus and then I realizes my friend I'm like what up son what I do the coat switch because we all want to belong now why does any of this matter I tell you why this matters to me personally because my wife and I are raising our daughter in a world where people will label her as mixed as biracial or maybe even other they'll marvel at her curly hair they'll bill the struggle with the ambiguity of her blue eyes their exotic size her olive skin and they'll think to themselves and maybe be even as bold as to say what are you what are you and the sad part about this that is very clear what she is she's back and she's white and she's Christian and she observes the Jewish High Holidays right she's also very funny and she loves music and a whole host of other things but because of those superficial differences people are gonna see her and she'll experience what it's like to be a black sheep in ways that are far more salient than me and that just breaks my heart because when I think about the world that I want my daughter to experience as she navigates her journey in life I would hope that someone sees her and says I see you you matter and we are more alike than we are different why should this matter to you well I'll tell you this should matter to you because we live in a world more divisive than ever before there's the haves and have-nots there is the Liberals and the Conservatives Republicans and Democrats young and old and somewhere along the lines we find ourselves trying to navigate this spectrum and we all end up feeling like black sheeps out of place lonely and I think about that it makes me wonder imagine a world where we stop looking each other's differences and started looking at the things that we have in common then we look at each other and say I see you and we're more alike than we are different imagine that world will we take on people's perspectives we allow ourselves to be super empathic because it's what we're wired to do look I'm not trying to romanticize diversity instead I'm promoting the unity of humanity because that's the world that I want to live in and that I think is an idea worth spreading thank you so much you