Be the love you are Fight the fear that keeps you silent

[Applause]

i’ve come here today to talk about

equality

and the importance of using our voices

to stand up for it

even if it scares us now i know a lot

about the fear

which is exactly my point so please sit

back

and let me tell you about how i learned

to fight the fear

that kept me silent you see right now

i’m doing something that scares a lot of

people

public speaking is listed as the top

phobia of people

over heights spiders

and death like actual death

as it turns out a whole lot of people

would rather die

than give up give a speech so it would

stand to reason that anyone that can do

this

must be confident right i must be

confident

i must have always been confident the

answer to that one

in my case at least is a resounding no

when i was a kid i had a stutter

if you’re familiar with stutters you’ll

be familiar with the way that the

speaker will get hung up on a particular

sound

repeating it over and over and over

again and how like the slightest

appearance of annoyance in the eyes of

the person listening will just make the

whole thing ten times worse

yeah i had that at the root of this is

anxiety

which sadly i had in spades

had a lot to do with being awkward

and then being bullied for being awkward

which lead to more awkwardness

funnily enough which led to more

bullying which led to more awkwardness

and i’m sure you can tell which way this

is going

needless to say none of us did wonders

for my verbal confidence and my

time in school is just um dotted with

difficult memories of a a problem and

difficulty standing up for myself and

speaking up

the funny thing was i love to write i

would sit there with my pencil and i

would write a mile

a minute i had so many ideas but then it

came time

to read my stories out and i would read

them in my element

and i’d have to go back and repeat

myself and go slowly and

i wanted the ground to open up and

swallow me

so because of this and the bullying and

the awkwardness

i spent most of my time in school

staying relatively quiet

choosing to share my uh strongest

feelings about things only with my

closest friends

however during this awkward time there

was one particular incident that stood

out in my memory

and the reason it stood out is because

it had the power

to take my frustration at my inability

to communicate

and amp it up to about 111

and it was this you may relate and i

hope you don’t

but i’d be a kid at a party full of

adults

maybe there’d be a few other kids we’d

be having a wee

talk playing a game and out of the

distance you could hear

one of the adults make a racist joke

remember these moments distinctly

because i would be sitting there tying

myself in knots

there would be this complicated cocktail

of intense emotions

including but not limited to frustration

irritation

depression that the adults who were

supposed to be the people that knew

things could

believe something so dumb and um

something of a of a kind of a

conversational impotence

if there is such a word it’s full of

those moments when you so

desperately want to say something but

you lack even the basic tools to do so

so i sat there and frustrated silence

my youth was an awkward time for me so i

took my solace out in writing

i sat alone in my room and i wrote

screeds of text

all of which remain within the pages of

journals i shared with nobody

anyway life went on i grew up moved out

got heavily into travel met people from

all walks of life

did things that scared me that i never

thought i could do and

over time my confidence improved

when i finally returned to new zealand

the stutter was gone

and i’ve become determined to do

something to challenge my fear of

speaking up

so i began attending toastmasters

classes

now for those unfamiliar toastmasters

are a network of clubs around the world

that teach public speaking skills

so i started going to those and much to

my absolute shock

i love them i love them so much i

finally had an outlet for all the things

i struggled to say

so i wrote some speeches went to some

competitions had some success i wrote

about empathy and kindness and things

that mattered to me

but i had a burning desire to step up to

a bigger platform

to not limit myself to the nice but

limiting bubble that was toastmasters

the problem with this is every time i

thought about it i was wrecked with

fear i was like it was like i was still

that small child

i was afraid somebody would tell me to

shut up or i’d be criticized

so i remained small

until one day something happened that

changed everything

as we all know on the 15th of march 2019

a gunman attached both the al and both

the elenor and

linwood mosques in christchurch

resulting in a death toll of 51 people

the attacks were meticulously planned

the weaponry chose

modified so as to create as much carnage

as possible

and then perhaps the most horrifying

thing was that the targets chosen were

chosen out of hatred

and fear this was no natural disaster

suddenly a full-scale terrorist attack

had taken place on new zealand soil

like others my heart went out to those

affected

i could not help but think about the

friends i’d made overseas

many of whom had been muslim how we’d

simply been friends and colleagues

how sure differences had existed between

us but we hadn’t

in many facets they walked a different

path but in so many others our paths

were much the same

we all had dreams goals hopes senses of

humor fears

i could not get past how the perpetrator

and others like him could not see that

same humanity

that same normality in the eyes of those

he blamed for everything

i could not get past how the perpetrator

could be so shrouded in darkness that he

could lose sight of his own humanity

as well as the ability to recognize the

humanity in others

and then i read about the perpetrator’s

other weapons

words prior to carrying out the attacks

he had uploaded a 74-page manifesto

this was eventually taken down but not

before it was able to be downloaded and

read by many

this hit me hard because here was

someone

with words that were nothing but

destructive words that were hateful

fearful designed to plant seeds of

hatred in the minds of others

and this person was so confident to

share them

my words may not have been perfect but

one thing they were never going to do

was hurt somebody

never before and my fear of standing up

seemed so small so stupid so dumb in

front of the face of anything

it was a sharpest strongest piece of

clarity i’ve ever had

and it is what ultimately led to my

presenting this speech

which i humbly offer as an example of

some of my words

you see what happened in new zealand

that day was inarguably

an example of hatred at its most

destructive potential

nobody can argue that prejudice was the

was it cause of that

however hatred starts small

it begins its life as a seed and left

unchecked can grow and morph into

something ugly

something dangerous its targets vary

its results vary but the underlying

energy is still the same

and it is the erroneous belief that one

life can be of greater or lesser value

than another

the black lives matter protests that

took place in america earlier this year

have shown a spotlight

on the racism in america that is with

the greatest power that’s been seen

since the 60s

and with the advent of the internet that

message has been able to travel

everywhere

this has created a groundswell

and one of the themes that has

consistently come out of these protests

is the need for us all of us to have

open communication

about racism and bigotry in our

societies with our children

with our peers these will not always be

comfortable conversations

but they need to be heard because our

silence on these issues does nothing to

minimize the problem

the problem will simply go on unseen and

we cannot hope to heal

what we do not see

for those of us not on the receiving end

of a particular form of prejudice

it can be a bit like having a pair of

blinkers on

i use this analogy and that we tend to

only see the problem when it is right in

front of us

when it is unmistakable and it is these

blinkers

that can lead to us inadvertently

derailing these conversations

inadvertently dismissing the concerns of

another

out of a sense of disconnection

this can all be unlearned what we need

to do is to listen with empathy to

recognize

defensiveness on our part and can it and

to

release the tendency to assume

and often this is unconscious but to

assume that the way that we experience

the world is much the same for everybody

unfortunately this isn’t the case

to elaborate a little on defensiveness

you see this a lot on the internet

when people are talking about prejudice

you see people in all capitals getting

angry

saying things like not all white people

or not me etc

this is destructive because the person

speaking knows that

and also the person speaking isn’t

making an accusation at us

one of the biggest problems with this

habit is that it turns the topic of

conversation away from the speaker and

back to us

leaving the speaker unheard

defensiveness is a knee-jerk reaction

but it can be unlearned how

by taking a step back from the emotion

that provokes the anger in the first

place and asking ourselves

like honestly is this person making an

accusation of prejudice at me

or are they merely expressing their

frustration

because nine times out of ten that’s

what it is

the life experience of another does not

become any less valid

any less real as a result of its being

difficult for another person to hear

the life experience of another simply is

and should not

be argued with and while we’re on the

subject of defensiveness i can see no

better time than to bring up the hot

button topic

of privilege when many people hear this

they become defensive

because they hear a subtle insult and

this is unfortunate

and it need not be all privilege means

in this instance is that those of us

not on the receiving end of a particular

form of prejudice

are likely to underestimate the extent

of the problem

and this goes even when we have the best

intentions

this is all privileges it does not mean

that our lives are void of problems

it simply means we don’t experience that

problem

does not mean that our lives are perfect

it simply means we are not struggling in

this way

privilege could be simplified down to

the pair of blinkers i described earlier

their existence does not make us bad it

doesn’t make anyone bad

but it is important to recognize that

they are there because they limit our

perceptions

and that is the effect if we are going

to be

of a force for good in this world we

need to use our ears

our empathy and our voices our ears

to listen without defensiveness

our empathy to put ourselves in the

shoes of other people and ask ourselves

how we would feel

if that happened to us would we be upset

i think we would and lastly we need to

use our voices

now i want to first add the disclaimer

that i understand

not everybody lives in a country in

which they are free to express their

voice

but for those of us here and abroad who

do we need to use our voices more and

more

to fill the internet to fill the print

mediums

with messages that are the opposite of

hatred and fear and ignorance

with messages that seek to heal and

educate

and bring together

we are all on this planet together and

it is up to all of us to do our part to

help make it a place where we can all

thrive

not just some some of the ways that we

can help

is by using the communicative skills we

have to hand

be it speaking be it writing be it art

visual communication

by using the communicative skills we

have at hand to communicate with the

world

the power of empathy the values of

kindness

of integration of oneness

we need not let fear keep us silent

now the million dollar question do i

still have a fear of speaking up

the answer is absolutely yes but i am

determined to work through it because i

know what’s important

i’m just one person one little speech

from me is not going to change the world

it’s not going to end racism it’s not

going to end prejudice

the problems might be just a little bit

bigger than that

however the one thing i do have control

over

is that this is my contribution and i

will make sure it is not my last

unfortunately there will always be

voices that speak for hate and for

division and fear

there will always be voices echoing out

into the world

that seek to divide and separate

alienate and hate

we cannot realistically expect these

voices to become silent

but we can raise our own to the

alternative and we can raise them so

loud

that we drown the other voices out

again i’m not i’m just one person but

i’m not the only one

if you two out there anywhere have a

message

of peace of kindness even of humor that

you long to share and that you’ve held

back

out of fear there has never been a

better time than now

to let go of the fear

step up to the podium pick up your pen

write and upload your manifesto of peace

because the world needs your words your

voice

your contribution be the love you are