The next big thing is coming from the Bronx, again | Jon Gray

78,068 views ・ 2019-07-30

TED


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00:12
My name is Jon Gray.
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They call me "The Dishwasher."
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I cofounded Ghetto Gastro,
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a Bronx-based collective
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that works at the intersection of food, design and art.
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We create experiences that challenge people's perceptions of the Bronx,
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the place that I call home.
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It's a funny thing.
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I just touched down in Vancouver from Paris a few days ago.
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We took over the Place Vendôme with the Bronx Brasserie.
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Oui oui, chérie.
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(Laughter)
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It's wild, because in Paris, they have this saying,
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"le Bronx,"
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which means something is in disarray or a problem.
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That's the Place Vendôme.
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We shut it down one time.
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(Laughter)
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This lingo came into play when the Bronx was burning,
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and movies like "The Warriors" and "Fort Apache"
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still make an impression.
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Some may disagree,
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but I believe the Bronx was designed to fail.
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The power broker was a joker.
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Robert Moses, instead of parting the Red Sea,
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he parted the Bronx with a six-lane highway
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and redlined my community.
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My great-grandparents had a home on Featherbed Lane,
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and contrary to the name,
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they couldn't get a good night's rest
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due to the constant blasting and drilling that was necessary
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to build the cross-Bronx expressway
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a block away.
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I consider these policy decisions
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design crimes.
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(Applause)
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Being the resilient people that we are uptown,
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out of the systematic oppression
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hip-hop culture rose from the rubble and the ashes like a phoenix.
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Hip-hop is now a trillion-dollar industry,
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but this economic activity doesn't make it back to the Bronx
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or communities like it.
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Let's take it back to 1986.
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I was born in the heart of the AIDS crisis,
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the crack epidemic
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and the War on Drugs.
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The only thing that trickled down from Reaganomics was ghettonomics:
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pain, prison and poverty.
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I was raised by brilliant, beautiful and accomplished black women.
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Even so, my pops wasn't in the picture,
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and I couldn't resist the allure of the streets.
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Like Biggie said,
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you're either slinging crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot.
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Don't get it twisted, my jumper was wet.
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(Laughter)
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My shit was wet.
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(Applause)
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But when I turned 15, I started selling weed,
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I didn't finish high school,
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the New York Board of Education banned me from all of those,
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but I did graduate to selling cocaine when I turned 18.
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I did well.
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That was until I got jammed up, caught a case, when I was 20.
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I was facing 10 years.
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I posted bail, signed up at the Fashion Institute,
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I applied the skills that I learned in the streets
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to start my own fashion brand.
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My lawyer peeked my ambition,
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so he suggested that the judge grant me a suspended sentence.
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For once in my life, a suspension was a good thing.
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(Laughter)
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Over the course of two years and many court dates,
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my case got dismissed.
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Both of my brothers have done jail time,
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so escaping the clutches of the prison industrial system
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didn't seem realistic to me.
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Right now, one of my brothers is facing 20 years.
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My mother put in great effort in taking me out to eat,
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making sure we visited museums
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and traveled abroad,
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basically exposing me to as much culture as she could.
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I remembered how as a kid,
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I used to take over the dinner table and order food for everybody.
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Breaking bread has always allowed me to break the mold
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and connect with people.
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Me and my homie Les,
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we grew up on the same block in the Bronx,
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two street dudes.
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He happened to be a chef.
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We always discussed the possibility of doing something in the food game
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for the benefit of our neighborhood.
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Les had just won the food show "Chopped."
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Our homie Malcolm was gearing up to run a pastry kitchen at Noma,
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yeah, world's best Noma in Copenhagen, you know the vibes.
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My man P had just finished training in I-I-Italy,
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Milano to be exact.
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We decided the world needed some Bronx steasoning on it,
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so we mobbed up and formed Ghetto Gastro.
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(Applause)
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While I'm aware our name makes a lot of people uncomfortable,
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for us "ghetto" means home.
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Similar to the way someone in Mumbai or Nairobi
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might use the word "slum,"
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it's to locate our people
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and to indict the systems of neglect that created these conditions.
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(Applause)
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So what is Ghetto Gastro?
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Ultimately, it's a movement and a philosophy.
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We view the work we do as gastrodiplomacy,
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using food and finesse
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to open borders and connect culture.
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Last year in Tokyo,
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we did a Caribbean patty,
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we do jerk wagyu beef,
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shio kombu.
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We remixed the Bronx classic with the Japanese elements.
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And for Kwanzaa,
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we had to pay homage to our Puerto Ricans,
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and we did a coconut charcoal cognac coquito. Dímelo!
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(Laughter)
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This here is our Black Power waffle
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with some gold leaf syrup.
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Make sure you don't slip on the drip.
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(Laughter)
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Here we got the 36 Brix plant-based velato.
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Strawberry fields, you know the deal.
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Compressed watermelon,
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basil seeds,
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a little bit of strawberries up there.
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Back to the Bronx Brasserie,
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you know we had to hit them in the head with that caviar and cornbread.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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We also practice du-rag diplomacy.
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(Laughter)
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Because, we don't edit who we are when we do our thing.
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Due to our appearance,
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we often get mistaken for rappers or athletes.
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It happened here last year at TED.
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This dude ran down on me
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and asked me when I was going to perform.
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How about now?
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(Applause)
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So you see,
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we've been bringing the Bronx to the world
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but now we focus on bringing the world to the Bronx.
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We just opened our spot,
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an idea kitchen
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where we make and design products,
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create content --
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(Music)
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and host community events.
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The intention is to build financial capital
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and creative capital in our hood.
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We're also collaborating with world-renowned chef
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Massimo Bottura
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on a refettorio in the Bronx.
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A refettorio is a design-focused soup kitchen and community center.
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You see the vibes.
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(Applause)
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The recent outpouring of grief about the murder
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of rapper and entrepreneur Nipsey Hussle
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is largely due to the fact that he decided to stay and evolve in place,
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rather than leave his hood.
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After his death, some may see this decision as foolish,
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but I'm making that same decision every day:
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to live in the Bronx,
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to create in the Bronx,
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to invest in the Bronx.
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(Applause)
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At Ghetto Gastro, we don't run from the word "ghetto,"
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and we don't run from the ghetto.
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Because at the end of the day,
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Ghetto Gastro is about showing you what we already know:
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the hood
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is good.
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(Applause)
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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