Transcriber: Maurício Kakuei Tanaka Reviewer: Anna Sobota
Your voice isn’t really important.
It’s paramount.
It’s really surreal to be given a talk
in this area that I grew up in.
Not too far from here, many, many years ago, I was born.
And even though I was born around here,
I realized that I was actually born into a world
that doesn’t truly represent me or who I am.
The world doesn’t really represent the people I grew up with,
and I always found that a bit annoying.
After years and years, I realized that surprisingly,
the world actually isn't built for us.
It's built by those that realize the power of their voice.
Whether they knowingly or unknowingly notice,
they have the power to change the world around them.
What I found really interesting
was that in this,
this allowed me to see that there was a number of moments,
and a number of stories were told about me and my community
that were often not true.
Actually,
they were pretty much solid lies.
These stories that I found that were told about people from my community
often focused on violence or struggle,
and again, that wasn’t really the world that I knew,
and it wasn’t really the world of the people that grew up around me.
So I’ve realized that actually, I can sit here and complain
or I can realize the power of my voice.
I realized that the people,
that had actually gone to change and to define apparently who I was,
were those who had realized the power of their voice.
Your voice is a power
that can create worlds that nobody knows exists.
It can take us to places
that are not currently here.
And those that had actually found the power of their voice,
knowingly or unknowingly,
had created these amazing futures and amazing ideals.
Imagine if anyone knew the power of their voice,
what worlds we would see,
and what we would hear,
and what we would feel.
These people would realize
that the power of their voices
was paramount.
Paramount to the way that we see ourselves,
paramount to the way others see us,
and also paramount to the way we see each other.
The voice
is one of the most powerful tools we have,
whether that’s the voice we hear within us,
or the voice that others hear when we speak.
It could take us to places we didn’t know exist.
We’ve all seen the Marvel film “Black Panther,” right?
Imagine if,
one day,
one of the superheroes
got their superpowers from some vibranium jolof.
That’d be crazy, right?
Or imagine if Luther, the police investigator,
mid investigation,
was munching us in Corby Go.
That’d be pretty crazy.
Maybe I need to take my own advice
and use my own voice more.
I hope that when I reach my end days
that many more of us will be empowered
to recognize the paramount nature of our voice.
I’d love to see a world
where we are represented in every nuance,
in every spectrum,
and every reality.
There are so many stories hidden within us.
And they’re there.
They exist.
So I really hope
that when I reach my end days,
more of us recognize
just like those who have built the world before us,
the paramount nature of our voices,
so that we can learn more about ourselves,
and so that we can also learn more about others.
Your voice is paramount.
My name is Akwasi,
and thank you for listening to my TEDx talk.
(Applause)