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