WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.450 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.450 --> 00:00:03.700 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:00:03.700 --> 00:00:04.660 align:middle line:90% I am just going to-- 00:00:04.660 --> 00:00:07.418 align:middle line:84% I'm going to close with the final poem in the book, which 00:00:07.418 --> 00:00:09.460 align:middle line:84% was quoted a couple of times in the introduction. 00:00:09.460 --> 00:00:10.630 align:middle line:90% It's called "Worthiness." 00:00:10.630 --> 00:00:17.420 align:middle line:84% And I just want to give you a little context about this poem. 00:00:17.420 --> 00:00:20.810 align:middle line:84% The summer of 2020, I was preparing 00:00:20.810 --> 00:00:26.480 align:middle line:84% to leave my life in California for a job in Chicago. 00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:31.910 align:middle line:84% And it was, as we all remember, a very painful, 00:00:31.910 --> 00:00:34.650 align:middle line:84% complicated summer, not just because of the pandemic, 00:00:34.650 --> 00:00:38.510 align:middle line:84% but because of the social unrest in the face 00:00:38.510 --> 00:00:46.940 align:middle line:84% of grave, old, old, old racial injustices in this country. 00:00:46.940 --> 00:00:52.040 align:middle line:84% And I was invited by an old friend 00:00:52.040 --> 00:00:55.850 align:middle line:84% from college, who's a successful journalist. 00:00:55.850 --> 00:00:57.770 align:middle line:90% This is being recorded. 00:00:57.770 --> 00:01:02.330 align:middle line:84% I was invited to write something that I didn't-- 00:01:02.330 --> 00:01:03.090 align:middle line:90% sorry. 00:01:03.090 --> 00:01:04.400 align:middle line:90% I really have to change that. 00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:07.280 align:middle line:90% 00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:13.430 align:middle line:84% I was invited by someone to write about Mr George Floyd's 00:01:13.430 --> 00:01:18.020 align:middle line:84% execution, in prose, for a popular media outlet. 00:01:18.020 --> 00:01:21.425 align:middle line:84% And I didn't want to do it for lots of reasons. 00:01:21.425 --> 00:01:23.300 align:middle line:84% I didn't feel I was exactly the right person. 00:01:23.300 --> 00:01:24.758 align:middle line:84% I didn't really feel I had anything 00:01:24.758 --> 00:01:27.260 align:middle line:90% unique to say about this. 00:01:27.260 --> 00:01:30.560 align:middle line:84% We've been saying the same thing again and again, 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:32.150 align:middle line:90% over a long time. 00:01:32.150 --> 00:01:33.950 align:middle line:90% But I felt that I should try. 00:01:33.950 --> 00:01:36.830 align:middle line:84% And so for about three days, I just 00:01:36.830 --> 00:01:39.383 align:middle line:84% moved language around on the page, 00:01:39.383 --> 00:01:40.550 align:middle line:90% not really getting anywhere. 00:01:40.550 --> 00:01:42.590 align:middle line:84% And then this poem began to assert itself. 00:01:42.590 --> 00:01:45.590 align:middle line:84% And I realized that something in me 00:01:45.590 --> 00:01:48.650 align:middle line:84% knew I had to try in order to find this poem, which then 00:01:48.650 --> 00:01:50.570 align:middle line:90% eventually closed the book. 00:01:50.570 --> 00:01:55.670 align:middle line:84% It's like 3 to 4 minutes to read, just so you know. 00:01:55.670 --> 00:01:57.750 align:middle line:90% This will be the final poem. 00:01:57.750 --> 00:02:01.050 align:middle line:84% It's just a series of one-line stanzas. 00:02:01.050 --> 00:02:03.980 align:middle line:84% So each moment is its own moment. 00:02:03.980 --> 00:02:05.940 align:middle line:90% Thank you again for being here. 00:02:05.940 --> 00:02:08.270 align:middle line:90% Thank you for listening. 00:02:08.270 --> 00:02:09.064 align:middle line:90% "Worthiness." 00:02:09.064 --> 00:02:14.420 align:middle line:90% 00:02:14.420 --> 00:02:19.580 align:middle line:84% "Guns and tear gas on TV are not where I want to begin. 00:02:19.580 --> 00:02:24.440 align:middle line:84% The rejection, for me, came from both directions. 00:02:24.440 --> 00:02:27.410 align:middle line:84% Home was not a place in any sense, 00:02:27.410 --> 00:02:30.560 align:middle line:90% an idea defined by its absence. 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:32.910 align:middle line:90% What about here? 00:02:32.910 --> 00:02:34.470 align:middle line:90% What about now? 00:02:34.470 --> 00:02:36.720 align:middle line:90% I know to ask myself. 00:02:36.720 --> 00:02:39.840 align:middle line:84% Years ago, I hurt my neck in an accident, I write. 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:44.000 align:middle line:84% And before I can finish, I turn away from me. 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.630 align:middle line:84% Who was the first who turned away? 00:02:47.630 --> 00:02:50.840 align:middle line:84% Some say I lack the right to complain because I still 00:02:50.840 --> 00:02:52.520 align:middle line:90% have breath. 00:02:52.520 --> 00:02:58.230 align:middle line:84% I try to be deliberate, to be present inside the time that 00:02:58.230 --> 00:03:00.120 align:middle line:90% partitions the day. 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:03.900 align:middle line:84% Time is less a measure of what is, more 00:03:03.900 --> 00:03:07.440 align:middle line:84% a framework of control, a structuring tool. 00:03:07.440 --> 00:03:10.470 align:middle line:84% An hour reflects the notion that we belong 00:03:10.470 --> 00:03:13.120 align:middle line:90% and are separate at once. 00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:16.840 align:middle line:84% I understand so little about progress. 00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:21.580 align:middle line:90% Some call grief complaint. 00:03:21.580 --> 00:03:26.410 align:middle line:84% Once an acquaintance, performing both conviction and lament: 00:03:26.410 --> 00:03:29.530 align:middle line:84% how hard it must be to walk into a room 00:03:29.530 --> 00:03:31.810 align:middle line:90% and be neither Black nor white. 00:03:31.810 --> 00:03:37.270 align:middle line:84% His motivation not to empathize, but to test a hypothesis, 00:03:37.270 --> 00:03:39.940 align:middle line:90% to ask me who I was. 00:03:39.940 --> 00:03:44.000 align:middle line:84% Not seeing, he had already decided. 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:47.810 align:middle line:90% I admit I fail at being present. 00:03:47.810 --> 00:03:51.950 align:middle line:84% I prepare for the hour I lose by preparing. 00:03:51.950 --> 00:03:56.060 align:middle line:84% The self I inhabit is fluid, shifting, 00:03:56.060 --> 00:03:58.370 align:middle line:90% I know to remind myself. 00:03:58.370 --> 00:04:01.550 align:middle line:84% The chokehold originates in the martial arts, 00:04:01.550 --> 00:04:04.010 align:middle line:90% a position of active defense. 00:04:04.010 --> 00:04:07.640 align:middle line:84% Air chokes and blood chokes are the two types. 00:04:07.640 --> 00:04:09.980 align:middle line:84% In both instances, the purpose is 00:04:09.980 --> 00:04:13.310 align:middle line:84% to induce an unconscious state, even death. 00:04:13.310 --> 00:04:17.120 align:middle line:84% As the measures of day proceed, an unconscious state 00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:19.399 align:middle line:90% becomes my objective. 00:04:19.399 --> 00:04:22.850 align:middle line:84% You'll have to forgive me for being heavy. 00:04:22.850 --> 00:04:27.680 align:middle line:84% Speaking to you here, like this, is the most difficult thing 00:04:27.680 --> 00:04:29.390 align:middle line:90% I can do. 00:04:29.390 --> 00:04:37.140 align:middle line:84% The presence it requires is agonizing, feels fatal. 00:04:37.140 --> 00:04:40.470 align:middle line:84% On a cellular level, trauma is inscribed 00:04:40.470 --> 00:04:42.690 align:middle line:84% into the body of the person who survives it, 00:04:42.690 --> 00:04:44.190 align:middle line:90% scientists confirm. 00:04:44.190 --> 00:04:47.490 align:middle line:84% Some say the word trauma is overused these days, 00:04:47.490 --> 00:04:50.430 align:middle line:84% to the extent its meaning is diminished. 00:04:50.430 --> 00:04:52.590 align:middle line:84% The intention of the chokehold is 00:04:52.590 --> 00:04:54.270 align:middle line:90% to induce an unconscious state. 00:04:54.270 --> 00:04:58.530 align:middle line:84% Unconscious states vary in nature and origin. 00:04:58.530 --> 00:05:03.060 align:middle line:84% In waking dreams, before I wake, the tasks of the day 00:05:03.060 --> 00:05:04.440 align:middle line:90% assert themselves. 00:05:04.440 --> 00:05:07.560 align:middle line:90% One task is to go to the gym. 00:05:07.560 --> 00:05:11.550 align:middle line:84% One task is to deconstruct racial constructs. 00:05:11.550 --> 00:05:17.550 align:middle line:84% Guns and tear gas are not where I would choose to begin. 00:05:17.550 --> 00:05:21.180 align:middle line:84% I try to be deliberate, to be present. 00:05:21.180 --> 00:05:25.230 align:middle line:84% In a way, my to-do list seems manageable, even standard. 00:05:25.230 --> 00:05:27.900 align:middle line:84% I reduce each task to its constituent parts 00:05:27.900 --> 00:05:30.570 align:middle line:84% for efficiency and practicability. 00:05:30.570 --> 00:05:32.970 align:middle line:84% In an email to a student, I explained, 00:05:32.970 --> 00:05:36.910 align:middle line:84% to racialize is the act of assigning a racial category 00:05:36.910 --> 00:05:38.170 align:middle line:90% to a person's body. 00:05:38.170 --> 00:05:38.770 align:middle line:90% E.g. 00:05:38.770 --> 00:05:41.740 align:middle line:84% an Arab from the Maghreb, his mother in the United States 00:05:41.740 --> 00:05:43.730 align:middle line:90% is racialized as Black. 00:05:43.730 --> 00:05:47.360 align:middle line:84% Scientists say there is no single physical attribute that 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:49.460 align:middle line:90% establishes a so-called race. 00:05:49.460 --> 00:05:53.150 align:middle line:84% Scientists say trauma lives inside the body 00:05:53.150 --> 00:05:55.730 align:middle line:90% and is passed on generationally. 00:05:55.730 --> 00:06:00.830 align:middle line:84% Physiologically, joy is a surge of dopamine and serotonin 00:06:00.830 --> 00:06:01.970 align:middle line:90% in the brain. 00:06:01.970 --> 00:06:05.180 align:middle line:84% In an experience of joy, it is unclear 00:06:05.180 --> 00:06:09.470 align:middle line:84% whether physiology or event comes first. 00:06:09.470 --> 00:06:12.740 align:middle line:84% 9 and 1/2 minutes of a knee on a neck 00:06:12.740 --> 00:06:16.070 align:middle line:90% is not formally a chokehold. 00:06:16.070 --> 00:06:19.910 align:middle line:84% The choke of chokehold points less to the neck of the victim, 00:06:19.910 --> 00:06:21.660 align:middle line:90% more to the hands of the perp. 00:06:21.660 --> 00:06:22.160 align:middle line:90% E.g. 00:06:22.160 --> 00:06:26.660 align:middle line:84% You can choke a pen, a water hose, a clothesline. 00:06:26.660 --> 00:06:31.620 align:middle line:84% 9 and 1/2 minutes of a knee on a neck is more akin to-- 00:06:31.620 --> 00:06:33.150 align:middle line:90% and I turn away from me again. 00:06:33.150 --> 00:06:38.020 align:middle line:90% 00:06:38.020 --> 00:06:44.570 align:middle line:84% Is one's psychology a spiritual or physiological occurrence? 00:06:44.570 --> 00:06:48.080 align:middle line:84% If he felt scared, or threatened, 00:06:48.080 --> 00:06:52.280 align:middle line:84% or even a pressure to do his job in a way he had fundamentally 00:06:52.280 --> 00:06:55.280 align:middle line:84% misinterpreted, but believed in because reinforced 00:06:55.280 --> 00:06:58.870 align:middle line:84% by the system he worked for and within, 00:06:58.870 --> 00:07:02.335 align:middle line:84% why was his face so neutral, so casual? 00:07:02.335 --> 00:07:04.840 align:middle line:90% 00:07:04.840 --> 00:07:08.500 align:middle line:84% The act of racialization occurs instantly, 00:07:08.500 --> 00:07:11.440 align:middle line:84% prior to applying interpretations of gender 00:07:11.440 --> 00:07:14.050 align:middle line:90% or age, scientists say. 00:07:14.050 --> 00:07:16.360 align:middle line:84% In the late aughts, popular culture 00:07:16.360 --> 00:07:19.180 align:middle line:84% felt the need to recast homophobia. 00:07:19.180 --> 00:07:24.350 align:middle line:84% You're not scared, you're just an asshole, the meme said. 00:07:24.350 --> 00:07:29.540 align:middle line:84% Racism is not etymologically conceived as fear. 00:07:29.540 --> 00:07:33.950 align:middle line:84% The ism suffix forms action nouns of verbs. 00:07:33.950 --> 00:07:38.480 align:middle line:84% E.g. baptism is the action noun of the verb baptize. 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:43.760 align:middle line:84% Race, by this logic, would be a verb root, racism, 00:07:43.760 --> 00:07:46.280 align:middle line:90% the act of performing race. 00:07:46.280 --> 00:07:48.980 align:middle line:84% The sinister connotation of racism 00:07:48.980 --> 00:07:53.570 align:middle line:84% suggests the race being performed by racism 00:07:53.570 --> 00:07:55.130 align:middle line:90% is sinister. 00:07:55.130 --> 00:07:58.700 align:middle line:84% If racism exists to uphold the supremacy 00:07:58.700 --> 00:08:03.500 align:middle line:84% of the white racial category, whiteness, by this logic, 00:08:03.500 --> 00:08:05.630 align:middle line:90% is sinister. 00:08:05.630 --> 00:08:10.460 align:middle line:84% I try to be deliberate, to inhabit the present moment that 00:08:10.460 --> 00:08:12.620 align:middle line:90% agitates me into fleeing. 00:08:12.620 --> 00:08:18.330 align:middle line:84% Being here now, with you, speaking here now, 00:08:18.330 --> 00:08:23.280 align:middle line:84% with you is the most difficult thing I can do. 00:08:23.280 --> 00:08:25.560 align:middle line:90% I am not being rational. 00:08:25.560 --> 00:08:27.780 align:middle line:84% I am trying to reduce the present 00:08:27.780 --> 00:08:30.570 align:middle line:90% into its constituent parts. 00:08:30.570 --> 00:08:34.679 align:middle line:84% Last month, a student emailed me to say she was too scared 00:08:34.679 --> 00:08:36.750 align:middle line:90% to go to any class but ours. 00:08:36.750 --> 00:08:38.640 align:middle line:90% It was not a compliment. 00:08:38.640 --> 00:08:41.100 align:middle line:84% I did not take it as a compliment. 00:08:41.100 --> 00:08:44.430 align:middle line:84% I am tired of apologizing for the heaviness of what 00:08:44.430 --> 00:08:48.820 align:middle line:84% I am required to discuss in order to live. 00:08:48.820 --> 00:08:51.610 align:middle line:84% I tell the student she is worthy. 00:08:51.610 --> 00:08:56.530 align:middle line:84% I ask her to write a poem about her worthiness. 00:08:56.530 --> 00:09:02.140 align:middle line:84% When I turn away from the day, I enter an unconscious state, 00:09:02.140 --> 00:09:03.830 align:middle line:90% I seek it. 00:09:03.830 --> 00:09:06.860 align:middle line:84% Though years ago, I wrote, I want 00:09:06.860 --> 00:09:11.020 align:middle line:90% to enter my life like a room." 00:09:11.020 --> 00:09:12.330 align:middle line:90% Thank you so much. 00:09:12.330 --> 00:09:15.680 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:09:15.680 --> 00:09:18.200 align:middle line:90% Thanks, y'all. 00:09:18.200 --> 00:09:20.690 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:09:20.690 --> 00:09:23.370 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:09:23.370 --> 00:09:26.070 align:middle line:90% Oh, thank you. 00:09:26.070 --> 00:09:27.570 align:middle line:90% Thank you so much. 00:09:27.570 --> 00:09:29.520 align:middle line:90% Oh. 00:09:29.520 --> 00:09:30.120 align:middle line:90% Thanks y'all. 00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:31.200 align:middle line:90% Y'all are lovely. 00:09:31.200 --> 00:09:34.050 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:09:34.050 --> 00:09:35.870 align:middle line:90% Thank you.