So something that I've been thinking a lot about with all
of this-- and I've thought a lot about it,
I think just growing up on the Rez is part of this--
is this idea of American goodness.
I think many of us are at a point in time where
we've suddenly realized, you know--
and this is something I've been talking a lot about,
so you might have heard me say this before--
we've reached a point in time where more than the usual of us
have realized, there is no such thing as good and bad.
Like that law, all we've been taught--
law, do what you're supposed to do,
and you won't get in trouble.
Obey the law and you won't get in trouble.
Or be good and this won't happen to you.
Suddenly, we realize law, like logic,
is just another system of control.
It's just another structure of power.
And something I grew up with and something
I'm definitely a product of is the idea of American goodness.
I had to be the best.
And for me, it was basketball.
Like that's the thing that leaped me from my reservation.
But I knew I had to be the best.
Like this idea of American excellence
or American goodness.
And I mean, the entire time I was striving for it,
I also knew that it was completely impossible.
No matter what I did, I was still only myself.
And I was still only who I was in the eyes of many
of the people.
I traveled every summer to Scottsdale, Arizona
and played with a very wealthy basketball team
to help their team win, and they paid my way to be there.
And yet I had to put up with all of the underhanded barbs
and all of the, you know.
I remember a couple of white girls
stole a necklace at a fair.
And I was the one who got questioned for it.
It was like some fucking hippie necklace.
I was like, what would I do with that?
I couldn't, I can't wear that at home.
I'd get beat up.
Like why would I want that necklace?
And so this is, for me, just this idea of goodness
is one that's killed so many people,
and it's killing so many of us.
And so there's a couple background things
you need to know.
So I'm pulling lyrics from a song called Maps
by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
There's a lot of white people in here
so I know you probably know this song.
[LAUGHTER]
And there's a few brown people in here so I'mma play this
for you because you may not have heard this.
[LAUGHTER]
[MUSIC - YEAH YEAH YEAHS, "MAPS"]
So this song is called Maps.
She says "don't stray" really early on in it.
Pack up.
Don't stray.
Enough.
Oh say, say, say.
Wait.
They don't love you like I love you.
Wait.
They don't love you like I love you.
Maps.
And she's saying maps, maps, maps.
Wait.
They don't love you like I love you.
So that idea, "they don't love you like I love you."
Most of you probably know this from this song.
[MUSIC - BEYONCÉ, "HOLD UP"]
Beyoncé snagged-- sampled--
the lyrics.
Hold up, they don't love you like I love you.
Slow down, they don't love you like love you.
Back up, they don't love you like I love you.
Step down, they don't love you like I love you.
So most of you probably know it from that song.
They don't love you like I love you.
My mother said this to me long before Beyoncé lifted
the lyrics from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
And what my mother meant by "don't stray"
was that she knew all about it.
The way it feels to need someone to love you.
Someone not your kind.
Someone white.
Some one, some many who live only because so many of mine
have not.
And further, live on top of those of ours who don't.
I'll say, say, say.
I'll say, say, say, what is America if not
a clot of clouds, if not spilled milk or blood, if not the place
we once were in the millions.
America is maps.
Maps are ghosts-- white and layers of people
and places I see through.
My mother has always known best, knew
that I've been begging for them to lay
my face against their white laps, to be held in something
more than the loud light of their projector, of themselves.
They flicker sepia'd or blue all over my body.
All this time, I thought my mother said, wait, as in,
give them a little more time to know your worth.
When really, she said weight, meaning heft.
Preparing me for the yoke of myself.
For the beast of my country's burdens,
which is less worse than my country's plow.
Yes, when my mother said, they don't love you like I love you,
she meant, Natalie, that doesn't mean you aren't good.
And that idea--
[APPLAUSE]
That idea of goodness is just one
that, it's so problematic to me, but it's
one that's built into every single one of us.
Even the idea that we don't ever let somebody,
once they've been through the system,
we don't ever let them go.
We let it chase them down the road.
Once you are a criminal, you stay a criminal.
You always have to show your record.
You can even have your sealed records unsealed
if somebody wants them badly enough.
And it's such an absurdity, the fact
that we would use that as a mark of badness,
as if each one of us were unmarred in our goodness.
It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.