>> Change lives.
>> [FOREIGN] >> Change organizations.
>> [FOREIGN] >> Change the world.
>> [MUSIC]
Does my singing that song cross a line for you?
Now what if I told you that while for
some that song recalls moonlight magnolias, and mint juleps?
For most people is a rallying cry for racism and bigotry.
Sung at the turn of the century in black face.
Does it a cross a line for you now?
Now most of the time when we think about crossing lines, it's a pinch
at best And at worst, it's offensive or inciting of violence.
But what I'm here today to talk to you about
is how crossing lines can actually end the prejudice that that song belies.
Now, you may be asking yourself, who am I to talk about crossing lines,
because I've got lines drawn all around me.
But, as Cal Robin has taught us in touchy-feely so
well, I am now going to name my lines for you.
Some that you can see, and some that you can't.
So I am white, I am female,
I am upper-middle class, I am Christian,
and as my accent belies, I am Southern.
And so what that means, for me and my life, is that I have a family and
a history of slave ownership.
Who am I to talk about prejudice and crossing lines?
And you know moreover,
civil rights movement happened 40 years ago, we have a black president.
Let's move on.
I'm here today to talk about why we can't move on, because
while a lot of my stories and my personal history deal with racism,
I'm gonna argue today that there is prejudice right here in our communities.
At the GSB.
And, I'm sure in the communities of professional circles that you,
as alumni, also work in.
So the first line that I'm gonna start at is a tennis base line.
And that's in my home town of Lake City, South Carolina.
The most beautiful place in the world.
Neither a lake, nor a city, discuss.
So if you want to go to Lake City in 1998 and visit this tennis base line,
at the Lions Park across the street from my house.
You would find me there every afternoon after school with my best friend, Tony.
Now, Tony wanted to learn how to play Tennis.
And I had played being, a white upper middle class woman for a long time.
And so we chased balls around most days.
But hopefully that would be enough.
And so this afternoon, like every other, we had our practice.
And then I went to my grandmother's house like I did every night for dinner.
And as I was sitting down at the dinner table.
My grandmother said I got a phone call today from Teresa.
Now, I want everybody to get in their minds, the snoodiest person that you know.
Then I want to multiply that by ten, sprinkle just a little bit of disdain for
color, tip up your nose, and that is Teresa.
And Teresa had called my grandmother.
And said that she had seen me playing tennis with Tony and
that I as a white, woman, Christian, upper class, I should know better.
Because you see what I didn't tell you is that Tony is black.
Shouldn't do it.
And as these words started coming out of my grandmother's mouth,
I couldn't believe it.
All that I had heard from her, in my life, was love and
acceptance and this was hatred and bigotry.
And so if you know me, as many in the room do, I'm a little bit dramatic.
So, I had a dramatic moment.
I got up from the table and I ran.
I did not want to be in the same space as these words so that they might infect me.
And over the next days my grandmother tried to repair that relationship.
She came over to my house, with her a blue velvet box.
And, inside was a cubic zirconium cross.
She was going to buy me back.
And I remember looking at the symbol that for me was faith, hope and
love and all I saw was hatred and and racism.
But, over the next five years,
there's some thesis work that I did on my hometown.
I had the great fortune of meeting Paula.
Now Paula, was a pillar in her church community,
the Wesley United Methodist Church, in my hometown of Lake City,
an African-American church there.
And Paula and I got very close as a part of this work, and because of that,
Paula said that she was gonna come to the bible study at my church, 7:00 a.m.
On Wednesday morning.
And as she walked into the room that morning,
there were a whole lot of Theresa's around the table.
And they scooted to the other side.
Except for one.
My grandmother.
Because over the course of those five years,
she had been walking slowly over the line.
Because what she saw there was that Paula, was indeed black.
But she was also a woman.
She was a Christian.
She was a grandmother, she was a mother.
All the things that my grandmother was herself.
And a few years ago, we threw a surprise birthday party for my grandmother for
her 86th birthday.
The first person there was Paula.
And as she walked across a threshold at the front door of my grandmother's
rambling Southern house.
She was doing more than just walking across a door frame.
She was walking across 100 years of history.
Where in that house black people were not allowed to enter the front door.
And as she did that, she was met with an embrace on the other side.
Two lines were crossed that day and the history of hatred began to fade away.
Now you might be saying this only happens in backwater, Southern towns like yours.
I admit, I am from the backwater.
But I'm gonna argue that it happens right here at the GSB.
So when we apply here,
Derek Bolton has selected us on some fabulous characteristics.
We are achievers.
We are excellent.
We are multi-cultural.
But time as we get here, we get out our markers and we start drawing our lines.
Went on the Colombia trip before school.
Didn't go on the Colombia trip before school.
Investment banker.
Non-profit.
International.
American.
We segment and super-segment and sub-segment because it feels good.
It feels good to be with people who are like us.
But, what does that say about the community we create?
So I wanna tell you about a time when I left my markers at home,
mostly because I was running to the airport and I was late.
And that was when I came to, Admit Weekend, two years ago,
and that's where I met Sabah.
Now because of some bright person in the Admissions Office,
we had been put together in one of those dinners that you
have to sort of get to know your potential future classmates.
And if I'd had my markers out that day,
here are the lines that would have been set up around us to separate us.
Sabah is from Cyprus.
I'm from South Carolina.
Sabah is a scientist.
I was a marketer.
Sabah is an atheist.
I'm a Christian.
But fortunate, I think for me, what I saw that day and
learned was that Sabah likes really good coffee.
He's a bit of a snob that way, just like me.
And Sabah really loves the best barbecue that you can find, just like me.
Before the GSB, Sabah lived in North Carolina.
Not South Carolina, but we'll give him that one.
We'll let that one slide.
I was able to see, lines and all, the full person across the table from me that day.
And I think about the Wednesday mornings that we've had breakfast together now for
almost two years.
And I think about if that hadn't been there in my life,
that I wouldn't be right here.
And so I've told you lots of stories.
What can we do?
To cross the lines during our lives.
I'm going to give you three ways.
Way number one is to really, touchy-feeley style, meet people where they are.
Now what does that look like?
It means sitting across the table and hearing the story, and sharing your own.
Not to judge or to question or to argue, just to sit and be.
It worked out when I met Sabah.
I'll tell you when it didn't work out was with my grandmother.
Because, in that exchange, she was wrong, I was right.
I didn't want to hear it.
But, I reflect on that now and I think what if I had asked the questions.
I would have probably learned that she had been told by people that she loved,
that black people were less.
I think we would've come to the same conclusion, but
maybe we'd have gotten there a little bit faster.
Maybe it wouldn't have taken five years.
Maybe it would've taken one.
Maybe it would've taken just the hour to have the conversation.
So, meet people where they are.
The second way, is to really be ready for
the chance encounter that some magic person in an admissions office,
or some diversity committee, or some team manager creates for you.
And how do you open yourself for that kind of readiness?
It's really about self-reflection.
You have to know where the lines are in your own life so
that you can be ready, willing, and able to cross them.
Which leads me to my last reason.
Which is really the most important.
Is that to allow someone else to dictate diversity in your own life is not enough.
You have to make your own dinner tables.
So in closing I wanna leave you with another song.
Interestingly enough it was written at the same time as Dixie,
but it has what I think is a bit of a better message.
And that's really the essence of community,
which I would argue Is communion.
[MUSIC]
Who will you break bread with tonight?
Thank you very much.
>> [APPLAUSE]