Thank you to the Good Shepherds community for inviting me to speak at the annual Youth Summit! Thank you to the students for working hard on your presentations that will be shared later today! And Thank you to the most high for blessing us all with another day to breath, to see, to taste, to hear and feel this wonderful opportunity we know of as LIFE! Let’s begin with a moment of silence to honor those who have past and those who will be entering this earth.........
As I pause to reflect upon the current circumstances that America is dealing with, my speech will attempt to put my finger on the pulse of our nation. And what I feel is a nation still struggling with core issues of freedom, justice and equality for all.
Crowd participation:
Raise your hand if you are a Good Shepherds student.......
Raise your hand if you have ever experienced hardship or struggle in your life.......
Raise your hand if you have ever been stereotyped.....(age, race, gender, sexuality, religion or dress code).....
Raise your hand if you know someone who has been murdered because of violence.......
Raise your hand if you have ever experienced any type of fear in your life.........
Raise your hand if you use the internet........
Raise your hand if you have dreams and goals for your life.......
Raise your hand if you believe that education is power.........
Just by raising your hands we can all relate to the ideas of freedom, justice and equality. These are sacred ideas worth living for and dying for. These are ideas that are unfortunately not given automatically because these are ideas that we must constantly fight for. And when I say fight I do not mean picking up a gun or throwing a bomb, let me be clear in saying that to fight is to educate ones-self with the tools, information and resources to never be fooled, to never be treated as a second class citizen, to never be treated unfairly, to never be treated any less than who we truly are and that’s as equal human beings!
Fighting for Freedom:
Speaking from a place of love. I believe in the promise of America. I believe in the legacies of Democracy. My great grandfathers fought for freedom during WWII in the Philippines and their sacrifices are the reasons why I can stand and speak in America today. My great grandfathers fought for freedom, not just for those who were victorious but freedom as a vision for everyone to live together with justice and equality. I had to question what freedom was at a young age when I grew up with an uncle who was serving a life sentence in San Quentin State Prison. I had to question what freedom was as a child when my father was addicted to crack cocaine which brought crime, domestic violence and child abuse into my home. I had to question what freedom was when friends that I grew up with began to be murdered as a result of gun violence. I had to question what freedom was as a young American man traveling back to the Philippines and experiencing my families 3rd world conditions living in poverty....These questions would all be addressed later on in my life as I choose the path of education as my key in unlocking what freedom really means for me!
Fighting for Justice:
To the students of the Good Shepherds community, let us all understand that there is a dark cloud amongst us during these present times known as a Culture of Fear. This culture of Fear keeps us silent. This culture of Fear keeps us ignorant. This culture of Fear keeps us doubting ourselves. This culture of Fear keeps us from believing in our dreams. This culture of Fear is a cancer that will inevitably make our lives lonely and miserable! Therefore we must do everything in our powers to resist this present Culture of Fear by fighting for the Trayvon Martin struggle because the issue here is whether or not justice be served! A powerful force that changed the world, Dr. King once said, “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Crowd participation:
Raise your hand if you have ever eaten skittles candy before......
Raise your hand if you have ever drank Arizona ice-tea.....
Raise your hand if you own a hooded sweater.......
Yes indeed, we all could have been in Trayvon Martin’s shoes which is what makes this case so unique......
Put aside politics and lets look at the facts:
1)George Zimmerman was instructed by the Sanford police dispatcher to stop following Trayvon, despite George Zimmermans claims that Trayvon Martin looks suspicious.
2)George Zimmerman refused to follow the Police dispatchers instructions
3)Videos document no bruises or blood or grass stains on George Zimmerman after he was taken into police custody.
4)As a result Trayvon Martin was murdered in cold blood. May his soul rest in peace!
5)George Zimmerman is still a free man......
Like Trayvon Martin’s father said at a press conference, “its not about an eye for an eye, the issue here is about justice!” plain and simple............
Justice is George Zimmerman being arrested and tried for murder by a jury of his peers. Justice is an investigation on the Sanford police department procedures in handling this obvious crime. And furthermore, Justice is a national policy that addresses all forms of racial profiling including the racial profiling within multi-media messages in films, TV shows and radio broadcasts that perpetuate racist ideas. These racist ideas play a part in why according to “an analysis by the NYCLU which reveals more than 4 million innocent New Yorkers were subjected to police stops and street interrogations from the year 2004 through 2011, and that black and Latino communities continue to be the overwhelming targeted by the stop & frisk policy in NYC, where NYPD is granted free reign to stop and frisk anyone they see as Suspicious of criminal activities...An obvious law that allows racial profiling and an invasion of privacy to be legal! The Trayvon Martin struggle is a clear example of how racial profiling only leads to destructive results.
Justice is a reformed national policy that not only addresses racial profiling but also gun violence, police brutality and demilitarization. I no longer want to live in a world that uses weapons, the courts and prisons, and wars to keep us living in constant fear from each other. Its time for America to truly deal with the issue of racism......
When we deal with racism in America: we strike at the heart of what motivates injustices like the murder of Trayvon Martin,
When we deal with racism in America: we strike at the heart of racial profiling, police brutality cases and an overall legal system that arrests someone for throwing powder at Kim Kardashian but leaves the murderer of Trayvon Martin still on the streets of America......
When we deal with racism in America: we strike at the heart of wars that continue to kill thousands of people without cause!
Unless we deal with racism in America, we will never have true justice! And America will never live up to its greatest potential.
Racism is the cancer that will slowly destroy America from the inside out! But fighting for justice is a huge step in the healing process that will help America overcome this cancer known as racism. Justice for Trayvon Martin.......
Crowd participation:
Can I get a little deep this morning folks? Is that okay!!!! Can we flex the depths of our intelligences this morning? I told my peoples that I wouldn’t hold back this morning because these issues are a matter of life or death to me!!!!! Is that alright?
Fighting for Equality:
Instead of waiting for leaders to solve the issues of today, we must be those leaders we have been waiting for. Lets look at what we can do to fight for our own justice today.....
Let’s begin with education. An educated group of people can never be fooled. The world can take away my money, the world can take away my house, the world can even take away my family but the world cannot take away my education unless I never develop it. WEB DuBois, an influential Black American intellectual, wrote in the book, “Souls of Black folks,” of a condition known as the Double Consciousness. Double Consciousness refers especially to minority communities in America who have experienced great oppression. On one hand, an individual possesses a natural consciousness or state of mind; and on the other hand, this same individual possesses a double consciousness which sees the world based on how others see them. So if the norms of American society sees an individual as a criminal, a thug, a gangster, someone on drugs etc etc, Double consciousness means that this individual will begin to see himself or herself as a criminal, a thug, a gangster, someone addicted to drugs and begin to act in these self destructive behaviors. We must be very critical of this double consciousness because it is still very much alive today. Double consciousness also refers to hating oneself, looking into a mirror and not liking what you see. Self hatred leads the way to suicide, homicide and eventually genocide or the mass death of an entire group of people.
Only through education was I able to find my own voice in addressing my own double consciousness. Since 1998 I became an artist who created works of motivation and healing because I felt the damages created by my own double consciousness. I grew up unaware of my history as a Filipino, I grew up angry at the world because I was impacted by drug addiction through my father, gang violence on the streets of San Francisco and most importantly, I had low self esteem to believe in myself or my dreams. When I made it to college, all I could do was write poems or act in plays or do anything that allowed me to be creative. Years later I created a self-written play called Universal Filipino. This was my story that I began to perform throughout America but I began to realize that I was also telling the story of thousands of others who could relate to being a young person in this world who experienced this double consciousness. Therefore I changed the name of my play to Universal Self because I was deeply moved by the great response from people of different colors, creeds and geographic locations. Universal Self is a movement inspired by the Hip Hop generation. Being raised in the Hip Hop generation influenced me to tell my story, my real story not anyone else’s story but my story! Universal Self embraces the great knowledges from one’s history, culture and lived experiences. Universal Self embraces the whole entire universe within oneself. Universal Self takes fear and hatred and transforms it into healing and love. Universal Self is about believing that your story is worth being shared to the world, on all prominent and royal stages. Universal Self lays to rest this double consciousness by developing a universal consciousness.
Universal Self is a process that takes a lifetime to fulfill and like Tupac Shakur said “My goal is to be more than just a rap muscian, the elevation of today’s generation if I can make them listen. Prison aint what we need. no longer stuck in greed. time to blast strategize, my families got to eat.”
Crowd participation:
Anyone out there into Hip Hop culture? Anyone out there like Tupac Shakur? Believe that if Tupac were alive he would be at the front lines of the Trayvon Martin struggle!!!!
Part of my education has simultaneously been about fighting for justice. Let us acknowledge that we are living in one of the most exciting periods of world history.....young people throughout America have announced the American Spring: a positive and constructive call to action lead by young people, lead by people like you......
What is unique about this American Spring is that we are not only fighting for a single political struggle, rather we connect our individual struggles with other struggles worldwide: We understand that there is an attack on Women’s Rights; There is an attack on Immigrant Rights; There is an attack on Universal Health Care; There is an attack on our civil liberties to just walk down a street wearing whatever we want.....All these issues are interconnected because they deal with our collective Human Rights. This American Spring represents Signs of Unity across ethnic, religious, generational, gender and sexual diversity. On top of all that we are using the technology of the times to not only bridge the digital divide, we are using technology such as facebook, twitter and email to spread the word about issues that are important to us. As a result of the free market of the internet, it is easier to reach millions of people in knowing that our struggles are interconnected. Millions of people within a month signed online petitions demanding justice for Trayvon Martin..... Young people are understanding the power of one’s network in opening doors of opportunity that 10 years ago would take extremely longer to access.
Now we understand that we do not need to be dependent on the corporation because we have each other. And collective unity is much stronger than ideas or products that are watered down, commercialized, irrelevant, insignificant, disrespecting of our human ingenuity and intelligence! We are fed up with garbage being shoved down our modern throats. The American Spring is about believing in our own will and waking up!
America’s greatest strength is its cultural diversity. We in New York City often take for granted the wealth of cultures we interact with on a regular basis. When we challenge ourselves to know more about each other, we move closer to overcoming the present culture of fear that wants to keep us apart. But let me be clear, we must address the growing racism that will continue to tear America apart. And we know that nothing hurts more than a family torn apart. We have a great responsibility ahead of us, we meaning the younger generation to heal from the legacies of racism and the only way I know how to heal is by fighting for freedom, fighting for justice and fighting for equality.
TO THE STUDENTS OF THE GOOD SHEPHERDS COMMUNITY......repeat after me
I have the right to be powerful
I have the right to freedom of speech
I have the right to be protected by the law
I have the right to be whatever I want to be in life
I have the right to speak as loud as 100 speakers on full blast!
Lets make the rest of 2012 count by fighting ever so diligently for our dreams;
Lets make 2012 count by using our intelligence to fight for freedom & justice!
Lets make 2012 count by believing that we can change this world for the better
and not be fooled by selfishness or greed. Lets make 2012 count!!!!!
JUSTICE FOR TRAYVON MARTIN!
JUSTICE FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS
JUSTICE FOR IMMIGRANT RIGHTS
JUSTICE FOR ALL!!!!!!
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