TED_Topic6：How to raise a black son in America

By Clint Smith

As kids, we all get advice from parents and teachers that seems strange, even confusing. This was crystallized one night for a young Clint Smith, who was playing with water guns in a dark parking lot with his white friends. In a heartfelt piece, the poet paints the scene of his father's furious and fearful response.

# Background about our speaker

Clint Smith is a poet and educator whose work blends art and activism（行动主义、激进主义）.

备注：activism的含义！

Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, or direct social, political, economic, or environmentalchange, or stasis. Various forms of activism range from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing businesses, rallies, street marches, strikes, sit-ins, and hunger strikes. Research is beginning to explore how activist groups in the United States^[1] and Canada are using social media to facilitatecivic engagement and collective action.

# Why you should listen

For Clint Smith, inspiration comes from his students. The writer and educator draws on his and his students’ lives to create poetry that blends art and activism. A PhD candidate at Harvard University and a 2014 National Poetry Slam champion（全国诗歌大满贯冠军）, Smith gives performances with humor, humanity and humility, touching on （涉及、谈及）themes like poverty, social justice and the pains of being a kid.

# 视频地址

https://www.ted.com/talks/clint_smith_how_to_raise_a_black_son_in_america#

#Subtitles and Transcript

Growing up, I didn't always understand why my parents made me follow the rules that they did. Like, why did I really have to mow（割草；收割庄稼） the lawn（草坪）? Why was homework really that important? Why couldn't I put jelly beans(软心豆粒糖) in my oatmeal(燕麦粥)?

My childhood was abound with questions like this. Normal things about being a kid and realizing that sometimes, it was best to listen to my parents even when I didn't exactly understand why. And it's not that they didn't want me to think critically. Their parenting always sought to reconcile the tension between having my siblings and I understand the realities of the world, while ensuring that we never accepted the status quo(现状) as inevitable(必然的，不可避免的).

I came to realize that this, in and of itself, was a very purposeful form of education. One of my favorite educators, Brazilian author and scholar Paulo Freire, speaks quite explicitly about the need for education to be used as a tool for critical awakening and shared humanity. In his most famous book, "Pedagogy(教育学；教授法) of the Oppressed," he states, "No one can be authentically human while he prevents others from being so."

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, this idea of humanity, and specifically, who in this world is afforded the privilege of (给予的特权)being perceived as fully human(完整人). Over the course of the past several months, the world has watched as unarmed black men, and women, have had their lives taken at the hands of police and vigilante(义务警员 ). These events and all that has transpired after(发生；蒸发；泄露) them have brought me back to my own childhood and the decisions that my parents made about raising a black boy in America that growing up, I didn't always understand in the way that I do now.

I think of how hard it must have been, how profoundly unfair it must have felt for them to feel like they had to strip away(除去；揭掉) parts of my childhood just so that I could come home at night.

For example, I think of how one night, when I was around 12 years old, on an overnight(通宵的) field trip(野外旅游 ) to another city, my friends and I bought Super Soakers and turned the hotel parking lot into our own water-filled(充满水的) battle zone(战争地带 ). We hid behind cars, running through the darkness that lay between the streetlights, boundless laughter ubiquitous across the pavement. But within 10 minutes, my father came outside, grabbed me by my forearm(前臂) and led me into our room with an unfamiliar grip. Before I could say anything,tell him how foolish he had made me look in front of my friends, he derided(vt. 嘲笑；嘲弄) me for being so naive. Looked me in the eye, fear consuming his face, and said, "Son, I'm sorry, but you can't act the same as your white friends. You can't pretend to shoot guns.You can't run around in the dark. You can't hide behind anything other than(除了) your own teeth."

I know now how scared he must have been, how easily I could have fallen into the empty of the night, that some man would mistake this water for a good reason(以…正当理由 ) to wash all of this away.

These are the sorts of messages I've been inundated（淹没；泛滥；浸水；（洪水般的）扑来） with my entire life: Always keep your hands where they can see them, don't move too quickly, take off your hood（头巾,兜帽） when the sun goes down. My parents raised me and my siblings in an armor of advice, an ocean of alarm bells so someone wouldn't steal the breath from our lungs, so that they wouldn't make a memory of this skin. So that we could be kids, not casket（棺材；骨灰盒；小箱） or concrete. And it's not because they thought it would make us better than anyone else it's simply because they wanted to keep us alive.

All of my black friends were raised with the same message, the talk, given to us when we became old enough to be mistaken for a nail（钉子、指甲） ready to be hammered（锤击；敲打） to the ground, when people made our melanin（黑色素）synonymous with something to be feared.

But what does it do to a child to grow up knowing that you cannot simply be a child? That the whims（虚妄、突发的念头：on a whim，一时即兴） of adolescence（青春期） are too dangerous for your breath, that you cannot simply be curious, that you are not afforded the luxury of making a mistake, that someone's implicit bias might be the reason you don't wake up in the morning.

But this cannot be what defines us. Because we have parents who raised us to understand that our bodies weren't meant for the backside（背部；后方；臀部） of a bullet, but for flying kites and jumping rope（跳绳）, and laughing until our stomachs burst. We had teachers who taught us how to raise our hands in class, and not just to signal surrender, and that the only thing we should give up is the idea that we aren't worthy of（值得，配得上） this world. So when we say that black lives matter, it's not because others don't, it's simply because we must affirm that we are worthy of existing without fear, when so many things tell us we are not. I want to live in a world where my son will not be presumed guilty（推定有罪无罪的判决） the moment he is born, where a toy in his hand isn't mistaken for anything other than a toy.

And I refuse to accept（拒不接受） that we can't build this world into something new, some place where a child's name doesn't have to be written on a t-shirt, or a tombstone（墓碑）, where the value of someone's life isn't determined by anything other than the fact that they had lungs, a place where every single one of us can breathe.

Thank you.

# Comments I like

I recently read a comment from someone in reference to another TED Talk on the subject of the need to create honest systems of protective justice for the peoples of developing nations who lack them. In the comment, this person made reference to the "golden years of American history" (I'm paraphrasing somewhat) as being between 1776-1950. What's the criteria there? The African-American (and others) experience of that time period is fraught with horror and oppression (still is). I think our country can only be as morally upright as "we" are willing to face and own our historical evil. We may be able to be angels . . . but only insofar as we are honest and forthcoming about our devilish tendencies and nature. Are we a just nation, "liberty and freedom for all" and all that? We can be if we want it bad enough. Are we a nation of "evildoers" (GWB notwithstanding)? At times, most certainly. In all honesty, we humans (all of us) have the tendencies to be both gentle (Hitler loved his dog) and absolutely horrible (Hitler decimated some 6,000,000 people). It's just a matter of degree. Not to get too "Christian' about this but, yes, all of us at some level are broken sinners in need of redemption. Whenever I want to blame someone for "the way things are today," I don't have to go too far: I simply look in the mirror and grieve a bit (and celebrate too) for what I see and what my reflection can and does represent--the root of someone else's pain.

I dont think the majority can ever truly understand what exactly it feels to be a minority in the US. I had my share of experiences which were completely disgusting and unhumane. One time i was helping our church priest carry some donated items for christmas to the church's storage are. Then, i encountered a small group which start asking me a lot questions: who i was?, what was i doing there and such. Then the priest had to run up there and calm them down since the situation was getting out of hand. He even should them, his id's. Mind you i was an active volunteering in the Catholic church, we served food every sunday for the homeless and gave whatever else they needed. A member of bible studies and youth church group.

jose lopez

I agree, and I think part of the reason it's so hard to understand from the outside is that describing any one single experience never seems to quite capture what it's like to constantly be subjected to treatment like that. I think it's easy to hear one story and say, so you couldn't have a water fight, so you were suspected of being an intruder, boo hoo -- where is the real harm?

Like the classic analogy of oppression as a birdcage that seems perfectly open if you only see a single bar, it's much harder to tell the story of the collective effect of a lifetime of feeling uneasy and unwelcome. I think Clint Smith does a great job of telling that story, though.