How Fear and Assumptions Can Create a Better Life

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so let’s imagine for a moment

we’re at this big huge table and all of

these different diverse voices

are sitting at this table

people from different ethnic backgrounds

cultures identities gender socioeconomic

classes religions

different languages all these diverse

voices sitting together

as one

and we all come together with our own

assumptions right because we often come

to meeting new people with our

assumptions yes

okay

and then

but then we have an opportunity to

listen to one another

and actually get to know and maybe

challenge our assumptions in that moment

and then we get to sit down and listen

really listen to one another and create

a project together that ripples off and

will affect everyone not just a select

few but everyone

and then we get to work together as one

what if

all of the choices and decisions that

were made were with all these different

voices in life

that would be revolutionary

so i’ve got an interesting story i was

adopted

grew up in a loving all-white family in

morgantown west virginia i was adopted

three days after my first birthday by dr

jim and judy culberson an all white

family

and my parents introduced me to my new

sisters my sister laura blonde hair

green eyes she was 10. and my sister

lynne dark hair big glasses she was 11.

and my sisters wanted me to meet all the

big girls in the neighborhood so they

yelled come here come here go make a

mirror you got to see my new little baby

sister sarah you’ve got to see my new

little baby sister sarah so all the

neighborhood girls came running and they

sat in this big circle

and catherine morgan looked over at me

and she looked at my sister and she said

now wait a second is she black or does

she just have a really good tan

morgantown west virginia three percent

african-american they hadn’t seen very

many kids of color in the neighborhood

and my sister said this is my new little

baby sister sarah she’s part west

african and part white american and they

said oh

okay

so i was getting to know the kids in the

neighborhood and i was also getting to

know my extended family

now when i went to meet my grandmother

it’s interesting my grandmother had a

lot of assumptions about my parents

adopting me and the call with my

grandmother and my mom went a little bit

like this

mom

we adopted this new little girl sarah

she’s really cute she’s got all this

curly hair

i can’t wait to bring her home this

summer so you can meet her

hello

hello

and there was silence on the other end

of the line

my grandmother said judy i think

adopting this black little girl into our

family is only going to cause problems

and i don’t want to talk to you about it

click

and she hung up on my mom now my mom

being the mighty five foot two about a

little over 100 pounds mighty self said

you know what

i’m tired of these assumptions my mom is

making all the time we’re all gonna get

in the car this summer to go to

litchfield illinois and she’s gonna have

to deal with this

mom doesn’t mess around

so we all got in the car mom dad lynn

laura benji the dog and we the poodle’s

so cute we all get in the car and we

drive to litchfield illinois to the

farmhouse where my mom grew up

my grandmother comes out of the

farmhouse the door screeches open

she walks out

her arms crossed she looks at me

she looks away

then she looks back at me and says

can i hold her

and in that moment my mom said i was

breaking racial barriers within my own

family so i grew up and i was really

clear i didn’t look like anybody in my

family and i really didn’t look like a

lot of people around me and that was the

journey that i was moving through and

struggling with but moving through so i

went on to college went on to graduate

school and then i moved to los angeles

where i started doing tv and film and as

i was in los angeles i did this amazing

program called landmark worldwide and i

was sitting in the class

and they said tell the person sitting

next to you where you’re holding back in

life

and i realized in that moment i was so

angry at my birth father

because my assumptions were right i

don’t know how your assumptions are

sometimes but your assumptions are just

right right

my assumptions were right well where

were you my birth mother kept me for

nine months then i was in foster care

for three months then i was adopted

where were you

and then as i sat in the course and

started to pause

i started to think about well what was

it like to be an african man in west

virginia in the 70s with a white woman

having a child maybe i should give this

guy a break

and the moment i let go of that anger

there was this new world that i got to

step into and i wanted to find my birth

father so i was sitting in the class and

i told my friend next to me i really

want to find my birth father but i’m

terrified of being rejected he said

listen i know a private investigator who

won’t charge you more than a hundred

bucks your birth father’s gonna love you

all the fear came back up okay okay

i’m gonna do this

he said let me give you the information

so i contacted the private investigator

three hours all the information i needed

for 25 bucks not thousands like i

thought

and four days later i got a phone call

and there was this woman on the other

line and she said hello santa

this is evelyn how are you i thought is

this a jamaican woman i met the other

day because i couldn’t get the dialect

and i wasn’t expecting to hear from

anyone so soon she said i’m your auntie

we received your letter

and i started to bawl

i said thank you so much for calling i i

didn’t know if i would ever hear from

you i didn’t know if i would ever see

you she said i was there when you were

born i used to take care of you when

your birth mother would go to the

grocery store hold on hold on let me get

your uncle on the phone then my uncle

gets on the phone he goes oh

sarah

he says we are so happy you’ve been

found do you know who you are

like

i’m sarah

he says

you are part

of a royal family

your great grandfather was a paramount

chief

in sierra leone

your grandfather was a paramount chief

in sierra leone your grandfather was

knighted justice of the peace by the

queen of england you can be chief

someday

you are a princess in this country

princess assumptions are back wait a

second what does this mean

do i have to wear dresses all the time

do i have to look perfect can i never

say a bad word what’s happening

but i had to kind of just be with that

and they said we’re going to contact

your father in sierra leone he’s going

to be so happy to meet you so they

contacted my father it takes two weeks

for them to get message from village to

village to village because in 2004 very

few people have access to cell phones in

sierra leone

so during those two weeks i start

getting phone calls

from all of these different african

family members who live in the united

states hello set up i’m your uncle ali

your father’s favorite uncle hello said

i’m your auntie jenae they used to call

your father and me twins when we’re

little hello hello hello

all of these different african family

members

are welcoming me to the family

when i had told myself they’re not going

to want to meet me they’re not going to

want to talk to me my assumptions again

and it was just love

and as that

family all those family calls died away

i heard my birth father’s voice he

called and the first thing he said to me

is he said please forgive me

i did not know how to find you after

you’ve been placed in adoption your name

had changed everything had changed he

said you’re

i was young i went away to school your

mother told me she was pregnant she said

i will take care of her and then she

realized she couldn’t so we chose to

give you to a family who could really

take care of you during that time i said

listen

i want to apologize to you

because i’ve been making you wrong

my entire life

just to protect myself and i’m not gonna

do that anymore

and i said if there’s a day that goes by

that you feel guilty please don’t you

gave me the best family in the world and

now i’m gonna get to meet you too right

so how do we do this

and he said it’s challenging for me to

get a visa to come to the united states

could you come here i said i would love

to so i flew to maryland to meet all the

african family members you know the ones

that hello

right and we planned a trip for six

months later to go to sierra leone we

get off the airplane i’m walking on the

tarmac into the airport i am so nervous

i am so scared and i see my birth

father’s face

and he’s so nervous and he’s so scared

that i just give him a big hug

and i say it is so good to finally meet

you and he said it’s so good to finally

meet you too

and we took a ferry that night from

lunge to freetown the capital of sierra

leone and it’s named freetown because

it’s where the africans who were

enslaved in the united states were

brought back and named

in freetown that’s why it’s called

freetown

so i got to stand

in freetown

with my birth father

and the next morning he gave me this

beautiful green african dress and he had

the same matching green shirt and i’m

like okay we get to be twins i’m so

excited and we get to go on the bumpy

roads to boom pay my family’s village

and as we arrive there’s 100 200

hundreds of people singing and dancing

and everyone parts and all the women

come forward and they’re singing

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they’re welcoming me singing we’re

preparing for sarah in mende my family’s

language

i did not know how to be with all of

that

and as the excitement started to die

down i saw what happened after an 11

year civil war in sierra leone from 1991

to 2002.

i was there in 2004

and i

kind of had to sit back with my thoughts

and i went oh i thought this trip was

for me to make my birth family and know

more about myself

nah

this trip was about something so much

bigger than all of that

being a princess is about responsibility

being a princess is about working with

your community that’s what i learned and

i realized this has nothing to do with

me

i got to go back and talk to my family

so i went back to the united states

talked to my parents i said we got to go

to sierra leone so i took my folks from

west virginia to meet my family in west

africa we got the west going on westside

west virginia to west africa

and we all came together with our

assumptions about one another right they

came to the table but then we sat down

and we all started to listen and get to

know each other that’s so powerful when

we bring our assumptions but actually

question them and get to know each other

we all started to work together and we

created our non-profit sierra leone

rising doing work in public health

education technology and female

empowerment

yes

thank you

that’s because we had all these diverse

voices at the table listening because we

sat down with the elders

with the people in the community with

the women with the children with the

amputees who lost their arms and legs

during the civil war we listen to

everyone’s voices the diverse voices all

at the table

and a young girl said

we we drop out of school because we

don’t have access to pads so we as a

group the diverse voices started to talk

about well what if we worked with days

for girls and the girls in sierra leone

could actually make reusable washable

pads that they could keep using and stay

in school and then another voice said

you know what we don’t have enough clean

drinking water i mean all this is after

a war we don’t have enough clean

drinking water so we started digging

wells working with world hope and

partnering the voices together and

digging all of these wells together and

then someone else said we don’t have

access to bank accounts

or loans okay that that’s a that’s a

problem so how do we solve that well

what if we worked with crypto currency

because people have cell phones they

could do that well the problem is we

don’t really have

solidity developers who’s going to

develop on the blockchain to develop

this app

well wait a second who should develop

this

the people in sierra leone they know

what’s who they are they know what they

need

so we partnered with a company called

harmony a blockchain protocol company

how cool is that the name is harmony

right and we all started working

together in harmony

and they said we can train a thousand

coders in sierra leone

so the coders

these solidity developers are from

sierra leone and they get to create

banks for their own community

they get to bank the unbanked that’s

revolutionary

so what i have learned also is the power

of

sharing with people and sitting down at

the table so i had the opportunity to

sit down with stephanie elaine she’s an

amazing producer african-american woman

here in los angeles and she said sarah

we need to take your book that you wrote

a princess found and we need to share

the voices of different people

in this book because our narrative as

african americans is we were all

descendants from slaves

but we’re actually descendants from

africans and we don’t have that story we

need to shift the narrative

and she said let’s do this so we sat

down and we sat down with disney

and we had diverse voices at the table

and we started to talk about learning

about adoption talking about forgiveness

talking about a culture that a lot of

people don’t know this west african

sierra leone culture and they said let’s

do this

they said let’s do a movie

so we’re not gonna yes i’m excited

thank you

and they said let’s have another little

black princess so girls get to see

themselves represented a princess of

color yes

so we all

started to work together we definitely

brought our assumptions to the table we

listened to one another and we started

to work together as one

and when we do that in life

that’s when we really see

that we are one

village

one community

we are one tribe

thank you

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[Applause]

thank you

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