[Music]
I'd like to begin with a poem remember
the first day of freshman year when you
were nothing but a name and a dot on the
map at the front of the hall remember
when our parents dropped us off in those
rooms too small for all of our
expectations let alone our naivety
remember when you told me that you
weren't sure but you're pretty sure that
you were gonna declare a double major in
philosophy in English because you cried
the first time you read The Perks of
Being a Wallflower and we both shared a
secret and unquenchable lust for bad
science fiction remember when we both
thought we were going to find ourselves
change the world and all of the other
slogans we memorize from the view books
the ones that we stitched to our throats
when they asked us what we wanted to be
when we grew up so when you changed your
major to econ so when you pledged that
fraternity so when you exchange t-shirt
for j.crew so when you accepted that job
offer at an investment bank because you
swore you were just going to dismantle
the system from within because you were
just different from the rest of them
I wondered at what point we become the
tucked in shirt the nine-to-five we grew
up fearing you whose love of learning
far surpassed the stickers your teachers
adorned your homework with you who could
not fall asleep that night in debate
camp when you read Marx for the first
time because the world just finally made
sense again you whose creativity refused
to be disciplined what happened to you
you who sacrificed dream for diploma
revolution for resume and that factory
which tries to produce profit out of
every potential profit where change
falls from hearts into pockets won't
really teach you how to stop it because
we got to make that endowment rocked
it's small liberal arts college degree
it becomes a fancy way of saying can
spend eight hours designing PowerPoint
slides or will sacrifice all promises
for promotion or can seduce potential
business clients by quoting classic
literature I read in college so
what if the best way to dominate a world
is to pretend that you are saving it so
what if this education was really about
teaching us how to become so ignorant
that we forgot how to think for
ourselves you the 20-something year old
idealist gone corporate and your first
suit throwing theory at a wall that will
swallow you up and spit you back out on
the street discharged like the cold hard
cash of an ATM machine your heartbeat
reduced to a series of transactions I
almost thought that when you hug me
goodbye you had asked me for a receipt
proof of purchase for a friendship you
only consumed when it made sense for
your career trajectory I'm sorry I did
not make the cut for the walking resume
you mistake as body but I still want to
believe in you because I want to believe
in the power of a creativity
undisciplined the time we saw her smile
saw our first Eclipse read our first
book the joy and chaos of it all so what
if it is just chaos but time and space
before friendship got postponed by
deadlines but future before future was
segregated into interviews and
internships so what if we are really
nothing like the dot on the map from
freshman year and what if that is
beautiful what if we both cried when our
parents left us but we did not tell each
other what if I am crying that you are
leaving me but I will not tell you
because I no longer have the market
value to make you listen that I think
you are worth more than any salary
increase that they will give you that I
do not think that your heartbeat can be
kept transcribed on a spreadsheet of
numbers that I am broke but not broken
wondering what you could have been
before you sold out
thank you thank you and the spirit and
the spirit of full disclosure I'm here
to recruit you this is not a recruitment
interview like the ones your career
centers have prepared you for I do not
care where you went to school nor what
you majored in these things are no
longer relevant in a world where we are
losing some of our most creative and
dynamic minds to the epidemic of success
this is not the crisis that they will
tell you about on the news that the
economy is tanking the world is at war
this is something far different too many
things are working too well the
government isn't broken it's working our
universities are not broken they are
perfect our generation is not apathetic
it is flourishing this means that you
are not actually an innovator a leader
an exceptional student or all of the
other metals they've placed around your
neck these are merely accomplishments
you've been taught your entire life that
define your self-worth should you desire
to be successful you will not actually
bring human rights for all eliminate
poverty and global warming and fix
Congress should you go in with these
mindsets chances are you will fail in
the same ways all the generations before
you have failed the truth is the key to
changing the world is finding a way to
fail to live up to its expectations hi
my name is Alok VAD mannan and you could
call me a fashionista activist general
provocateur but I prefer to call myself
a professional failure someone who at
least my mom reminds me was destined for
all of the riches of the world but
somehow messed up on the way you see I
grew up in a comfortable middle-class
Indian family where the expectation was
that I'd grow up and become some
fancy-schmancy academic with two PhD
parents the bar was always set high
I remember getting chastised for talking
on the phone rather than reading the New
York Times I certainly I soon learned
that the secret were to legitimacy was
finding a scholar who had written about
something this is how I discovered
critical YouTube Studies it's real it
wasn't so much that my parents pressured
me to succeed it was more of a quiet
expectation you see this was part of our
immigration story to move
to this country and not really challenge
any of its rules but rather beat
everyone else at their own game which
goes to say that from an early age it
seemed like success was the only way to
justify my parents journey across the
ocean but when I got into Stanford my
parents weren't really that excited for
me it was something more well expected
it was only when I got to university
that I began to recognize how violent
success can actually be I remember the
day vividly it was our opening
convocation and the keynote speaker said
that we were all the future leaders of
the world before we had actually done
anything and I remember thinking the way
that we were discussing success was
actually less about what our impact was
and more about our shared prestige in
the beginning all of my classmates had
some brilliant ideas of what it was
going to take to fix the world's
problems but over time their methods
became shall we say less specific we
were expected to congratulate the public
servant who accepted a job offer at a
corporation that left hundreds of
thousands of people starving we were
expected to apply for a keynote speaker
and not mention his support of racist
policies lo and behold my classmates
continued to flock to all these talks by
success stories not necessarily because
of what they had done but rather because
of this elusive concept of who they were
success has never actually been about
fixing problems it's been about
perpetuating them ask yourself this what
happened to the thousands of people who
were denied admission to your University
what about the hundreds of people who
did not get the job that you were
offered how many people did it take to
suffer in order for you to thrive do you
even care success is about
self-promotion not putting change into
motion we are part of a generation whose
ancestors expect us to fix all of the
problems we inherited but ironically we
are destined to fail in the same ways as
them because we're using the same
tactics
success just isn't going to cut it
anymore ask yourself this if all of the
best universities really produce the
most successful leaders then why do we
still live in a
world of corruption if all the success
stories were really successful then why
do we still live in a violently unequal
world I think it's time we broke up with
success or at least how we've currently
defined it okay I get it this is like
super-awkward success feels good and I'm
asking you to feel bad about it it's
like what would it have felt like in
second grade after you wrote your first
love poem and your teacher gave it back
and said you failed it would be pretty
awkward I understand I didn't always
think this way
it took me failing and recognizing how
beautiful that was to really understand
in 2011 I had the opportunity to
organize with the transgender movement
in South Africa I was there to research
the disconnect between progressive
legislation and the experiences of
violence on the ground naturally being
the type a model minority I was I
obtained the best research grants got
critical and cutting-edge interviews and
generally felt like I had come up with a
theory to fix the violence I returned to
the US to continue to write my thesis
but in the process I got an email from
one of my colleagues that one of my
research participants had died her name
was Kim I just read her interview the
day before what is the point of a thesis
written and a language inaccessible by
the very people it's about what is the
point of a thesis and a researcher who's
familiar with the names of theories but
not actually the names of her own
neighbors who is invited to speak about
a movement and who must die for it
I was so concerned with being a
successful researcher that I glossed
over the parts of the work that were the
most important the hard and invisible
parts of building trust empathy and
solidarity I shared an office with Kim
for two months and I cannot tell you
what her favorite color was where she
lived and what made her weep for joy the
only parts of her that were important
were the parts of her that fit into my
own analysis success is a violent and
manipulative process the thesis
committee didn't care about my ability
to create research that was actually
relevant to local organizers let alone
my ability to end violence in South
Africa
if anything
research would have perpetuated violence
so that future generations of
researchers could come and study it for
their own job promotion let's call that
a success story so I deleted Kim's
interview I changed my topic and I
started thinking even though I had
failed at becoming an academic I had
succeeded at becoming a better human
being
failure in its own way is a different
form of success which means that every
single problem in the world can actually
be reconsidered as a successful
implementation of an idea the
persistence of racially segregated
schools reveals the success of
institutionalized racism the crisis of
student debt indicates the success of a
foolish logic that we should have to pay
for education rather than be entitled to
them the persistence of violence against
queer people is indicative of the clout
of a color of a currency of intolerance
these issues are not problems they are
success stories they are victories this
means that the system is not broken it
is working it is working so well that it
has taught us our entire lives that it
is broken so that we spend most of our
energy trying to improve it rather than
actually building alternatives success
is actually about maintaining the status
quo few of us have thought about who
determines the markers of success let
alone challenge them because we've
allowed the crisis of success to go
unregulated we find ourselves in a
peculiarly awkward position celebrating
every new success story while by and
large the world continues to get more
unequal more unhealthy and more
unbearable for the majority of people
those of us interested in intervening in
these problems can no longer revert to
success we need a new way to understand
and relate to our work a way that's less
selfish and superficial and to most
people this method might be thought of
as failing and to some degree I think
that they're right we are failing to
accept a world of injustice we are
failing to buy into the myth of progress
we are failing to leave one another
behind so I encourage you to fail more
think about how they've stolen your
passion from you and grafted it into a
career trajectory oriented
towards success and not necessarily
substance think about what that success
will actually you realize for people
beyond yourself and but I hope you will
find is that by failing a whole new
world of possibilities will open up for
you like the time I failed and
remembered how to love strangers that
and our own drive to succeed we neglect
the millions of potentials for change
around us this is often the most
transformative and exciting work work
like building relationships with
neighbors cooking making art and
movements and all of the other millions
of skills that will never have a place
on your resume this is what I'm asking
you to do think about the parts of your
day that you do not tell people the gray
areas that do not make it into your
interviews or resumes this is the most
important part of your identity major in
that feeling recently I have been trying
to reconsider all of parts of my life I
used to think we're insignificant and
find beauty in them these days the most
important work I do as an activist is
actually not that glamorous it's about
entering data and sprays and
spreadsheets organizing food for
meetings listening to people's stories
and calling my mom every single night
and these things are not going to change
policy give me a diploma or an award but
I think that they are doing the slow
work of tearing at the fabric of our
culture and this this is what I think
it's going to take to change the world
it's not going to happen if we keep on
trying to be successful and fighting our
way to the top it's gonna happen when
instead we reach our arms out to one
another clinging on desperately and
ferociously trying to remember a type of
interconnectivity that our schools our
careers and our own anxieties are trying
their best to eradicate remembering that
we are actually nothing and how
beautiful that is because that means
they do not know what to expect from us
next I would like to close with a poem
to honor Kim and all of the other
casualties of our success stories my
summer in Cape Town or I am sorry for
using you they will ask you whether your
research project can inflict significant
harm and you will respond minor
discomfort to expedite the review
process her name is Kim and on Monday
she asks you what you did over the
weekend
you do not tell her you are guilty of
the conversion rate how you can afford a
club ask in a language that she never
won she wants to know what it's like to
live in America if you have a boyfriend
there who will buy you dinner sometime
in your field preparation class they
will teach you the importance of
obtaining consent
Kim cannot sign your forms so instead
she communicates with the earnest D of
hazel eyes smiles tells you how she's to
let men and heroin inside of her and
sometimes couldn't tell the difference
laughs tells you how they used to beat
her and men's prisons in your
international field preparation class
they will teach you not to get involved
in your subjects personal lives your
palms are sweaty do not let them smear
the ink as she keeps smiling and
encourages you to ask more questions an
aneurysm is a blood fill bulge on the
wall of a blood vessel when the amount
of pressure increases there's a
significant risk in rupture often
resulting in death a researcher is an
ambitious distraction at the back of the
room when the amounts of information
increases there's a significant risk in
epiphany often resulting in a published
paper she will die nine months after
your interview and you can still
remember the scent of her smile one dear
Kim in America I am learning how to
think that I am better than you in fact
I am majoring in you don't worry they
don't use your name keep it confidential
- I am making a new theory out of your
body
academics work like John sometimes don't
worry they will pay me to use you I
promise I will cut you some of the
profit and my acknowledgments three my
thesis will be in English and that
language you learned watching reruns of
friends Kim wish we could have been
friends just got to keep it professional
I promise I will publish my thesis on
the whitest paper I can find so that
they will see the black in your words
for I will burry you in a library I hope
you will find peace there that haunted
house of quotations that hang on the
shelves like skeleton
listen to the recorded transcript on
repeat and cry because we're too afraid
to let people inside of us and fear of
imploding and cry because you have the
story of a dead woman nested at the back
of your throat and you do not deserve it
dear Kim what I really meant to ask you
was what theory did you use to stay warm
at night is can you teach me
[Applause]