All right.
Can you all hear me okay?
Let's set the record straight.
Just to begin with, there is no one person who ever does anything good alone.
Am I right?
We do this together.
We do all of this work together.
I get a little embarrassed sometimes because I know
I'm taking credit for the work that many other people do.
And I just want you to know how much I appreciate.
You know what? I'm even going to stop there.
And I want to say something
in the way of gratitude.
And forgive me for stumbling
because this was not part of anything I would have prepared.
But I see you all.
I see you.
Do you see me?
Yeah, I see you.
I see each and every one of you.
I see people who stood by me when I was going through hard times.
I see people who I know believed in me and believed in each other.
When Seattle has struggled and gone through hard times.
I see you. Do you see me?
Yeah, I see you.
And I so appreciate you.
I appreciate the opportunity to still be here today because I might have been
I might have been actually pushed out of the city
by some of the things that that I wanted to stand up for.
I might have been pushed to move to another place,
and I was, I was able to stay because of you.
I see you. Do you see me?
Yeah, I see you.
I see you. And I appreciate you.
There are so many ways in which we walk through this world together.
Side by side, sometimes.
Sometimes mind by mind.
Far away, but still together.
I see you. And I appreciate you.
And I'm so thankful that I'm still part of the Seattle family.
And honestly, it's because of you.
So I wanted to just share gratitude and say thank you.
Thank you for allowing me to stay in your family,
to stay in this space, to be part of this journey with you.
I see you. Do you see me?
I know that's true.
(applause)
I'm a very nervous talker, so I wander around a little bit.
I'm not a great talker.
So I brought a prop along with me today.
So even if I stumble through my words, I just want you to see something
beautiful. So I put together
some images of art,
street art and images for you to share and look at and see.
And you don't have to remember anything I say to see what these images
mean to you, how you take them in and how you appreciate them.
It's also my thank you card to you. My thank you card of images of the beauty
and struggle and hard work that is the kind of work we do every day.
So if you don't mind, I'll start that now.
This is a chance for me to talk a little bit about this thing,
about belonging and healing and unity,
which I consider a journey, a journey with many paths that many of us share.
Sometimes you feel like you walk alone, and I will tell you that you do not.
Sometimes you feel like the journey is hard.
And I will tell you I want to help make it easier for you
because I know you've made it easier for me.
It's a journey. I don't erase the hardship
because the hardship is supposed to be there, isn't it?
I don't make it completely easy,
and neither do you, because we are supposed to struggle.
We're supposed to struggle when we're supposed to hold
the joy that is part of that struggle as well.
Because damn we're together and we're doing this together,
this is a journey that has beginnings way before
any of us have been doing this work, right?
This is a journey that goes on and transcends time.
This is a journey full of pain and struggle.
This is a story of this country.
This is a story of oppression.
This is a story of hardship.
And it's also a story of incredible power and joy.
This is a journey that we play a small part in, in this moment in time.
But this is a journey nonetheless that that maybe makes time less meaningful,
that maybe in some Sankofa away time, the past, the present
and the future, they join together in this moment
because it is all of that. That is a part of this journey.
That is where we are.
That is where we are going.
On that journey, I learn things.
I try to keep learning things. I learn things like, for instance,
that the way we think about
issues like racism have to be understood more clearly.
I've learned not to talk about differences in health care based on race
because I'm supposed to be a doctor and I know that there's no biological
sense to that.
I'm learning that the differences we see, the hardships
we see they are based on racism, not race, racism, not race.
Racism, not race.
I'm learning. I'm trying to learn.
As I go along in this journey, I try to understand things that I want
to share a few of them with you because I try to get a better sense
of what I know, what I understand through that journey.
I'm also learning not to forget,
not to forget that that journey carries with it desire sometimes for people
to stop remembering, to erase the past, to cover over something that was important
somehow just a couple of years ago and somehow forgotten even today
is hard to remember sometimes.
It's easy to forget sometimes.
And yet our task, our job, even in this moment, even in
this part of this journey, is to continue to remember why we're doing this,
why we're here, why it was important, and we'll be important tomorrow.
I'm learning with you all, and I'm trying to be on this journey with you.
It's hard sometimes because we talk in different directions.
We understand things in different ways.
We see things sometimes differently.
And that's okay, isn't it?
I have a journey. I have a story.
You have a story, You have a beautiful story.
You have a narrative that is part of your life.
We all have narratives and stories and they're all valuable and they're all real.
There is not just one story.
There is a multitude of stories.
They are our stories and they are all real.
We also sometimes get caught up in the ways in which,
I don't know, I guess I'll call it scarcity.
Maybe I'll call it zero sum game thinking.
We think in order for us to advance, someone else has to not advance.
Someone else has to lose in order for us to win.
That is a construct of a time that needs to die and go away.
That is not who we are.
(applause)
We have multiple voices
and multiple stories and they're all valid and they do not denigrate each others.
They do not take away from each others because we are part of a journey together.
I see us and I understand us.
And in the times when I get confused,
when I feel a little lost, when I try to wonder where I'm going
and who I am, all I need to do is look into the eyes of a young person,
a young person who is both asking and answering a question,
a young person who is who is trying to bring me along on their journey.
A brilliance of youth that have the eyes that are clear on the future, understand
exactly where we need to be going and know that we are part of something
that needs to ask us to do something for our future.
I understand where I'm going sometimes just by looking at somebody
who hasn't even been there yet, but they know exactly what they're doing
because they're on that journey.
It's beautiful, it's powerful, there's clarity, and there's an understanding
through the eyes of young people about how we should be walking in the world
and who we are actually and truly and undeniably accountable to.
And let me tell you something, it's not on your lanyards.
It's in your hearts and in your souls.
I'm learning.
I'm trying to learn.
I'm trying to grow as we go along.
I'm trying to see ways in which our world needs to change
in order to understand how we move better together, faster and stronger.
I see in us a power and a beauty
that's amazing.
We are people who have experienced pain, we've had hardships on our journey.
But those hardships, those traumas, that pain does not define who we are.
I'll say that again, because I think I really want you to hear this.
Our pain, our journeys, are hardships.
They do not define who we are.
We are beautiful.
We are beautiful people.
We are brilliant, amazing, beautiful people.
We have we have a story to tell. We have a gift to share.
And we are absolutely brilliant.
There is no way that the hard things that we face in our lives
are the things that define who we are because there's just so much more to
us than that.
We're on a
journey together and part of that is for us to keep learning.
Let me tell you something else I'm trying to learn.
I'm trying to learn how not to talk about this work
of anti-racism and social justice
in terms of narrowing gaps.
I am so tired of
talking about justifying
the way racism shows up in our world and talking about narrowing gaps.
Narrowing gaps is so.
It is so.
It is so ... exhausting.
It is a term that means that somehow I am only going to be
as good as I possibly can be when I'm compared to someone else's.
As good as they possibly can be.
Does that make any sense?
Where in the world is there space for us to to see our
fullest selves. To see ourselves
blooming in every possible way?
Where does my
brilliance show up that yours might not be?
How do I ever want to compare myself only to the best
that some majority member of populations can achieve?
Can we stop the talk about gaps?
Can we stop talking about the goal
of narrowing gaps and eliminating disparities and talk about
lifting up the possible. For thriving.
For ability, for doing things that
have never even been thought of before?
That so bust any chart that I could ever show you because
because they're coming from a different kind of brilliance.
Do you feel me?
Does that make sense?
(applause)
If you want to talk
about a gap to describe where we are today, okay,
but do not talk about a narrowing a gap as a goal.
Cause that goal is rooted in oppression and we need to move beyond that.
I'm still learning about how so many of us see the world so differently,
how there's beauty in our vision, how each of our perspectives continue
to allow us to grow by noticing, noticing how somebody else notices something.
Not by trying to make it fit to my frame. Not by trying to make it understandable
in some language that's more comfortable to me.
But actually noticing that that perspective is a beautiful perspective.
I'm trying to learn. Are you learning with me?
Is this a journey that we're on together?
I feel that.
I'm trying to grow.
I’m trying to understand complexity, trying not to get in that pattern.
we sometimes have of taking the most complex problems and questions
and then looking for that one singular solution, that one little thing,
that one little button you could push that somehow would change everything.
Our plex.
I embrace that complexity.
I think it's beautiful.
I think it's amazing the way it complexity comes together.
How how differences show up, how you cannot describe me by one thing.
You cannot name my identity, although my identity shows up
in every aspect of your life.
But you do not get to describe me.
I'm much more complex than that.
You are too, and I love that.
I want to learn more about your complexity that is part of this journey,
in my view.
We're growing and we're learning and we're coming together.
We're on this journey and I think it's important for us
to understand how each step of that really helps us to change and grow.
I'm also trying to point at the screen, but sometimes
(laughter)
we have this really well worked out,
but I'm not really signaling quite the way I should.
I just think that when we start to think on a more complex level,
the possibilities for each of us
starts to show up in a different way in the community that we build together,
then looks a little bit different, a little bit richer,
a little bit more beautiful, a little bit more dynamic.
The possibilities grow and suddenly
we start to feel different about what we can do and see around us.
I start to understand that that I'm part of something,
that I have a small contribution, that you have a small contribution,
that some of that makes us all so much better along the way.
I'm learning and I'm
seeing how we have a history full of pain and hardship.
We have a history of trying to erase the possibilities
for growth and advancement in some of our communities
that we have tried through conflagratory processes, by violence
to actually hold people down, especially in our black and brown communities
through racism, to try to keep people from experiencing the wealth
of this country that everyone should be able to experience.
And it's not just on those days
when a village is burned down, when the community is destroyed.
It's also on those days when someone can't get a fair rent,
when someone's housing value is changed, when someone isn't able
to participate in this communities in the same way that they should.
It is not just the fiery moments that define the hardships that we face.
It is also the day to day battles that each one of you fights to make sure
that our neighbors, that our communities have equity and opportunity within them.
I'm trying to learn about the intersections,
about the ways in which those who are most hit hard by issues
of socioeconomic deprivation and cultural deprivation and racism
are also the ones who are hit the most hard by environmental change, climate change
and the effects of the harm that we're doing to the very air that we breathe.
I'm trying to learn, y'all.
I'm trying to grow and I'm grown with you because you are my teachers.
I think about the spaces and places where we think and the ways
in which we express ourselves.
And I remember that people have been doing this before us.
This is not just a brand new journey we're on. That there have been people
speaking up and speaking out about justice for a long, long time, for generations.
But there are journeys we're going to have to walk again, fights
we're going to have to fight again,
and that's okay because we're doing it together, aren't we?
And we've been doing it before, too.
We know how to keep doing that. I’m learning y'all.
I'm learning how to point at the screen better and I’m also learning
(laughter)
about about the ways in
which we owe our education to our young people,
about the battles that we fight to make sure that every school has a space
to learn and understand and see
themselves in the stories that surround them.
That, that is a right,
that is a right, that we have every right to fight for.
That, that cannot be denigrated, erased, taken away
by laws or practices in any place, in any part of this country.
Because if it's happening there, it's happening everywhere.
I'm trying to learn.
I'm learning about the rights that each of us have and the importance
of standing up for the rights of women and the reproductive rights,
the rights of women to be seen and known and
and understood, and share in the power, own the power
as far as I'm concerned, because I come from a clinic that's named after women,
that's been lifted up by women and held by women for four generations.
I'm trying to learn.
I'm trying to grow in this space.
When murdered and missing indigenous women are infected every affected
every single day by a society that doesn't want to see,
that doesn't want to recognize or understand.
These are things we all need to be learning together.
These are ways in which we all need to be growing together.
I'm learning about how, as we work through these systems and try to change them,
they're not actually small broken parts in these systems.
These systems are working exactly as they are designed.
That means our strategies have to be really, really different.
We can't walk into a space and say, I'm just going to fix this one piece.
We can't walk into a space and say, I'm just going to address this one issue.
They're working exactly,
precisely, completely and thoroughly as they are designed.
Which means we have to have different strategies to undo them.
As I learn about those things, I also understand that in each
and every day, each of you are you're working hard, you're doing hard things,
you're trying to compete, you're trying to stay in these games.
The world is trying to rush you through every part of the things
that you're trying to do for yourself
and for your families and for the ones you love.
I feel like time is weaponized.
Time is weaponized against social justice.
Timers are weaponized against doing what's right.
Time is weaponized against us, standing up and speaking for what's
right and against us, taking a break and breathing and finding our centers
again and understanding and knowing ourselves in the way that we know.
Time is weaponized and it becomes hard,
but we have each other.
And as we continue to grow and change and support each other through this process,
we know how to make things different, make things more beautiful.
As we do that, we start to understand that the limits
to what we can do should not be ever name by someone else.
That we should have a little more Angela Davis in them and ourselves
and understand that there are things that we cannot
tolerate any longer and that we have so much more power
than we actually want to say or can say we have sometimes.
It's time for us to name where our limits are,
time for us to be able to say what we can and can't do
and lift up the power that is us together.
I'm learning you all.
And through that I gain an incredible amount of hope.
You give me hope.
Seeing you here today, spending time with you, sharing time with you
gives me hope, helps me see that we have communities
that are beautiful, colorful, that come from from ancestors
and stories that like that are just so incredibly connecting
Our ancestors actually go back to the same place, don't they?
Our ancestry goes back to the same place,
and we are all part of an incredible journey together.
As I learn those things, I start to understand how I'm not afraid
to fight again for things that people have fought for before.
I'm not afraid to stand tall because I know that people have stood tall before.
And I'm around some some some pretty amazing heroes in my midst
right here today.
I'm not afraid to try to work harder because because it's worth it and
because I see what needs to be happening in the eyes of those young people.
I'm ready
to plot, to plan, to strategize, to mobilize.
Are you ready for that?
Is this part of the world that you want to see as well?
I know I'm ready.
I just need a company standing next to me over here and over there.
You lead, I will follow you.
Our work is before us.
And when we do that, we start to.
We start to shed the masks, don't we?
We start to remove the shields and the layers
that sometimes are protective, but I think are ultimately harmful.
That make us feel like we need to act like someone else,
feel like we need to show up in a way that is not us, feel
like we need to shield and hide our inner bodacious,
amazing, incredible, flagrant, just all of life self.
I'm running out of words.
I'm so excited about it.
But this is a space that we need to be doing.
This is a time I think we're in right now of shedding our masks,
of showing ourselves, of saying that the places we work, the places
we pray, the places that we live in, the places that we share with each other
their better because they see all of us, not just part of us.
They're better because they experience all of our brilliance, not just the kind
that was acquired in some particular kind of training.
This is a time for all of us to show all of us to each other.
I think this is what we should be
aiming towards and I think that's what we have in our futures.
I think about this and I think about the ways in which
we start to understand each other better
by truly seeing each other, knowing each other's experiences.
That's beautiful, isn't it?
That is the space that we, as we see for ourselves, the space we want to get to.
This is my gratitude card to you, this image of us truly knowing
and seeing each other
that is part of this journey that is the most
beautiful part of the journey I can imagine.
I see that happening.
I see that happening, especially when we listen
to the young people around us,
when we when we create this megaphones in the spaces for them to understand
and know themselves and speak out and tell you this is what needs to happen.
This is the future that we we get for ourselves.
This is the gift that we give to each other.
We give ourselves by standing in our true nature in a true time.
I see that I now understand things I'm learning.
I want to tell you something.
I'm just feeling like I'm starting to learn as I'm learning
about something that defies gravity.
Something that doesn't make sense to Sir Isaac Newton, but makes sense to me.
And that thing is that it is easier to lift people up than it is to hold them down.
It is easier.
It is less work.
It is just plain better.
But it's also easier to lift people up than to hold them down.
Oppression is hard work.
You know why you're tired partly?
Because you're part of an oppressive society.
You know why you're tired?
Because you're fighting against the oppression that is around you
every single day.
It's easier to lift someone up than it is to hold them down.
And that's that's the strength that we need to draw from.
I told you, I'm trying to learn.
I'm doing my best to learn.
And when we start to learn together, we create a sense of belonging,
of connectedness, a sense of value, and how our power is shared
and how beautiful it is to know somebody who sees you, to see somebody
who looks like you, to create a space
for someone, to see someone else and be connected across that spectrum.
I'm learning y’all I'm trying to learn, and I learned my most important lessons
from community.
The connectedness and the strength and the voice of community
that allows us to understand sometimes how to see through the,
I don't know, the bureaucracy, the complications, the challenges
that face us every single day. The power of community.
That's what a lot of you have taught me about, the understanding
that it is through the voice of community that the best answers, the best
solutions, the best practices, the best outcomes are always going to come.
As we learn together on this journey, we start to create something,
something kind of like wisdom, right?
Something that's different than than something in a book.
Something that's a little bit different than a bar chart or graph,
something that's deeper and more meaningful,
something that comes from our grandmother’s
blanket or maybe from from a time when you heard somebody say something
and you said, àṣẹ I know that's right.
We're learning, we're gaining wisdom and we're sharing it together.
This journey is important because there's this this ultimate goal
that we all want to see, a time when people know and love themselves and
have a sense of belonging that radiates and shines out across our communities.
A time when our brilliance is a strength where our abundance is seen and when
we're measured by the things we can do instead of by the things we can't.
We're not measured by our barriers, but by our possibilities.
Not measured by some problem list, but by some asset list
that is so much longer than anything like that.
This is where we're going to on this journey.
This is what we owe and gift ourselves.
We start to see the brilliance
and strength and communities, and we understand that we should be asking
what can we do based on those strengths, instead of what should we do?
Based on those deficits, we start to see an assumed
brilliance based on the brilliance in this community.
What should we be doing to lift it up?
I see that.
I see that as our journey and our path.
And I love that because ultimately the measure of that, the strength of that,
the most important piece of that. Can that be full screen?
Is really understanding this path towards dignity.
The thing that every single person deserves, the birthright of each
and every one of us, the beauty that we've earned and owned for time
immemorial, the thing that is in our genes and in our souls, the things that walks
beside us when we need a little strength, the thing that people need to recognize
in order to see us for our best selves. Dignity, the peace that allows us
to see each other through eyes that didn't want to see you the same way before.
Dignity.
The sense that when you walk through the door, you are enough.
You're absolutely enough.
You don't have to be some exceptional something.
You don't have to show up in a way that dresses in a certain way.
You don't have to become somebody who uses a particular language.
You are enough because you're valuable, because you're beautiful,
because you're something
and someone that's part of a journey that's incredible and wonderful.
And because you're inherency means you don't have to prove a damn thing.
You are enough, you are wonderful, and it is your dignity that I uphold
and I celebrate and I join with you in enjoying this time together.
We are part of something special, y'all.
We were a part of something amazing.
We were part of incredible spaces, incredible places in an incredible time.
And I am so thankful to be on this journey with each and every one of you.
And I just want to say again, thank you.
Thank you.
From the bottom of my heart for being part of a beloved and loving community.
Thanks you all.