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I want to take you back to the year 2010, it's my senior year of high school and
I'm in the final round of a speech team tournament.
Yes, I was the nerd in high school who did speech he considered it a sport.
[LAUGH] >> There are five of the finalists in
the room, 30 people there to watch us and three judges sitting in the front row with
their pens and evaluation forms ready to go.
And I'm there to give an eight minute speech on racial diversity.
So I deliver my speech, listened to my competitors do the same,
gave them a cute little bit of applause and a fake smile.
>> [LAUGH] >> And
then we all headed to the auditorium to hear the final results, and
in first place, they announced, Shawan Jackson.
>> [LAUGH] >> Of course I share that story because I
want you to know how fabulous I am.
>> [LAUGH] But
really I share that story because it was a moment of pride back then.
But when I look back on that moment today,
I'm not met with pride, I actually feel regret.
What I didn't mention at the beginning of my talk is that, that speech
wasn't advocating for racial diversity, I essentially argued against it.
To be fair, I didn't say that diversity itself is bad,
I just didn't understand the merits of racial diversity in particular.
In large part because I didn't understand the full extent of racial inequity.
Reflecting on this moment, I realized that while I had strong communication skills
back then, I lacked critical consciousness.
A term coined by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian philosopher that speaks to one's
ability to critically examine the world and do something to change it.
Realizing this inspired me to help other youth, especially underserved youth,
build not just their communication skills, but also their critical consciousness.
With the hope that they'll be able to speak persuasively about social justice.
But in doing this work,
I've realized that critical consciousness isn't just about challenging what you say,
it's also about challenging how you present yourself and your ideas.
Now when I first started teaching public speaking, I did not realize this,
I used to teach my students the control framework.
It went a little something like this, control your body stand up straight, relax
your shoulders, make sure they're in line with your feet gesture, but not too much.
Control your voice, speak up, pace yourself pause so that people really
listen, okay, not that long- >> [LAUGH]
>> And enunciate every single word as you
speak.
Now research shows that if you do those behaviors,
you actually do sound more persuasive.
But the more I've been working with youth of color, and
the more I've been reflecting on my own public speaking style,
I realized that there's a point when control becomes conformity,
when the right way to speak becomes the white way to do it.
Now let me be clear I don't dislike the way that white people speak, I love y'all.
>> [LAUGH] >> But
it saddens me that we have this unstated expectation that,
to be heard you have to make yourself palatable to white majority culture.
Maybe that means cutting out the black vernacular you learned at home because
it's not professional.
Or maybe that means limiting your expressions because you were told you need
to tone it down.
Or maybe it's cutting your Afro, like I did in the eighth grade,
because you learn that it's not presentable.
These behaviors reflect the concept called respectability politics,
when marginalized people present themselves in ways that are pleasing or
respectable to those with more privilege.
On the one hand, this makes complete sense, our world favors
those who just fit in, and as important as authenticity is,
it comes with a risk of being judged, of being ignored, of being silenced.
And this is a risk that many people care about, not just people of color.
According to a 2014 inclusion report from Deloitte, 83% of lesbian,
gay and bisexual people in the US, said they're not fully themselves at work.
66% of woman said the same, and so did 44% of straight White men.
Many of us feel this pressure to conform,
to avoid the risk of exclusion, but conformity comes with a cost.
Every time we change how we present,
from the words we use to our tone to our presentation, we validate the status quo
that is not equally appreciate multiple forms of presentation.
We send a message to younger generations that you can be heard, so
long as you sound look and dress more or less, like everyone else.
The easy answer would be what don't conform when you communicate,
but it's not that straightforward.
Because at times you do need to accommodate your audience, so
that you can make your perspective heard.
I don't know the answer to this question of how to deal with that, on the one hand,
I do want to be authentic, on the other hand, I want to be heard.
Even as I'm standing here in front of you right now,
I'm wondering if the way I'm dressed and the way I'm presenting is really me or
just what I think you want me to be.
And if I can't answer that question for myself,
who am I to talk to my students about it?
One of my mentors said, you don't need to have the perfect answer, Shawan.
Just open up the conversation with your students, so
they can critically engage with the topic.
So now in one of my classes on public speaking,
I read a series of statements and ask students go to one side if you agree,
another side of you disagree and somewhere in the middle if you're conflicted.
Agree or disagree, if I were giving a speech in front of politicians,
I would change my hair so that I look more professional.
Students spread out across the entire room and began to debate their opinions.
One of my Latino student said,
I'm not going to straighten my curly because that's a part of who I am.
Another student respectfully disagrees and says,
it's not that big of a deal to me, so I'm going to do it,
we don't come to a perfect answer in that activity, but that's not the goal.
The goal is simply to question whether persuasion can be problematic.
In the same activity I read another statement, agree or disagree,
to make people care about a social issue, I will share a sad story about myself.
This leads to a critical conversation about storytelling,
too often we share those sad stories so that people feel bad for us.
And while those stories can be moving,
they can often fall into this trap of poverty porn, you know what that is.
Those TV ads about those poor little kids in Africa who need your donation,
that story about a boy named Tony, who grew up in Chicago in a rundown apartment
in a single parent home who will not make it in life,
unless you donate to his nonprofit.
That's poverty porn.
Storytelling is a powerful tool of persuasion, but the problem with poverty
porn is that, it reduces your humanities to the struggles you've endured.
Without critically examining the narratives we're putting forward, we risk
diluting our self-worth, presenting an incomplete picture of who we really are.
And that's a problem, when I was teaching public speaking last summer,
I had a student who I won't soon forget, Jose.
He's a junior now, Dominican American incredibly smart,
and he ditched about half of my classes.
>> [LAUGH] >> So one day, I'm in the hallway with
him and I take them to the side, just to say what's going on.
He told me he didn't like public speaking, I figured just about as much, but
his reason why is what really got to me.
It doesn't matter how much we speak up he said,
at the end of the day, rich, white people will always be in power.
Deep down I fear that Jose is right, not because rich,
white people will literally always be in power, but because if we're not
mindful of how we're presenting, how we're advocating for change,
we risk changing the people in power, but leaving the culture largely the same.
So if I were talking to younger Shawan today, I would tell them two things one,
you're going to have that baby face for the next 10 years, at least, I'm sorry.
>> [LAUGH] >> It is what it is.
>> [LAUGH] >> And two and more importantly,
I would say that it's not enough to change your topic for
that speech team competition, to argue for racial diversity instead of against it.
You also need to critically question how you're presenting yourself in that room,
are you making yourself conforming too much?
How far are you willing to go?
And I want Shawan to think about those questions as a teenager because ten
years later I want him to feel free and comfortable to speak his own truth.
The entire truth, not just because it will make me feel better, but
because when you speak your truth, your whole truth,
you empower everyone else around you to do the same, thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
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