What comes after tragedy? Forgiveness | Azim Khamisa and Ples Felix

65,474 views ・ 2018-02-13

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00:13
Azim Khamisa: We humans have many defining moments in our lives.
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Sometimes these moments are joyous,
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and sometimes they are heartbreaking,
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tragic.
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But at these defining moments, if we are able to make the right choice,
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we literally manifest a miracle
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in us and others.
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My only son Tariq, a university student,
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kind, generous, a good writer, a good photographer,
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had aspirations to work for National Geographic,
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engaged to a beautiful lady,
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worked as a pizza deliveryman on Fridays and Saturdays.
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He was lured to a bogus address
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by a youth gang.
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And in a gang initiation,
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a 14-year-old shot and killed him.
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The sudden, senseless death
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of an innocent, unarmed human being;
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the overwhelming grief of a family;
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the total confusion as you try to absorb a new, hideous reality.
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Needless to say it brought my life to a crashing halt.
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One of the hardest things I've ever had to do
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was to call his mother, who lived in a different city.
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How do you tell a mother she's never going to see her son again,
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or hear him laugh,
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or give him a hug?
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I practice as a Sufi Muslim.
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I meditate two hours a day.
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And sometimes,
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in deep trauma and deep tragedy,
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there is a spark of clarity.
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So what I downloaded in my meditation
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is that there were victims at both ends of the gun.
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It's easy to see that my son was a victim of the 14-year-old,
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a little bit complicated to see that he was a victim of American society.
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And that begs the question, well, who is American society?
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Well, it's you and me,
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because I don't believe that society is just happenstance.
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I think we are all responsible for the society we've created.
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And children killing children is not a mark of a civil society.
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So nine months after Tariq died,
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I started the Tariq Khamisa Foundation
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and our mandate at the Tariq Khamisa Foundation
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is to stop kids from killing kids
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by breaking the cycle of youth violence.
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And essentially we have three mandates.
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Our first and foremost is to save lives of children.
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It's important to do. We lose so many on a daily basis.
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Our second mandate
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is to empower the right choices so kids don't fall through the cracks
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and choose lives of gangs and crime and drugs and alcohol and weapons.
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And our third mandate is to teach the principles of nonviolence,
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of empathy, of compassion,
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of forgiveness.
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And I started with a very simple premise
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that violence is a learned behavior.
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No child was born violent.
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If you accept that as a truism,
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nonviolence can also be a learned behavior,
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but you have to teach it,
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because kids are not going to learn that
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through osmosis.
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Soon after that, I reached out to my brother here,
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with the attitude that we had both lost a son.
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My son died.
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He lost his grandson to the adult prison system.
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And I asked him to join me.
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As you see, 22 years later, we are still here together,
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because I can't bring Tariq back from the dead,
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you can't take Tony out of prison,
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but the one thing we can do
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is make sure no other young people in our community
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end up dead or end up in prison.
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With the grace of God,
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the Tariq Khamisa Foundation has been successful.
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We have a safe school model
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which has four different programs.
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The first one is a live assembly with Ples and me.
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We are introduced,
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this man's grandson killed this man's son,
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and here they are together.
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We have in-classroom curriculum.
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We have an after school mentoring program, and we create a peace club.
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And I'm happy to share with you
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that besides teaching these principles of nonviolence,
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we are able to cut suspensions and expulsions by 70 percent,
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which is huge.
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(Applause)
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Which is huge.
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Five years after Tariq died,
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and for me to complete my journey of forgiveness,
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I went to see the young man who killed my son.
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He was 19 years old.
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And I remember that meeting because we were --
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he's 37, still in prison --
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but at that first meeting, we locked eyeballs.
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I'm looking in his eyes, he's looking in my eyes,
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and I'm looking in his eyes trying to find a murderer, and I didn't.
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I was able to climb through his eyes
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and touch his humanity that I got
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that the spark in him was no different than the spark in me
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or anybody else here.
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So I wasn't expecting that. He was remorseful.
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He was articulate. He was well-mannered.
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And I could tell that my hand of forgiveness had changed him.
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So with that, please welcome my brother, Ples.
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(Applause)
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Ples Felix: Tony is my one and only daughter's one and only child.
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Tony was born to my daughter,
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who was 15 when she gave birth to Tony.
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Mothering is the toughest job on the planet.
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There is no tougher job on the planet than raising another human being
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and making sure they're safe, secure
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and well-positioned to be successful in life.
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Tony experienced a lot of violence in his life as a young kid.
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He saw one of his favorite cousins
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be murdered in a hail of automatic weapon fire
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and gang involvement in Los Angeles.
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He was very traumatized in so many different ways.
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Tony came to live with me.
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I wanted to make sure he had everything a kid needed
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to be successful.
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But on this particular evening,
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after years of being with me
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and struggling mightily to try to be successful
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and to live up to my expectations of being a successful person,
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on this one particular day, Tony ran away from home that evening,
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he went to be with people he thought were his friends,
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he was given drugs and alcohol
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and he took them
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because he thought they would make him feel carefree.
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But all it did was to make his anxiety go higher
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and to create a more ...
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more deadly thinking on his part.
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He was invited to a robbery,
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he was given a 9mm handgun.
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And at the presence of an 18-year-old who commanded him
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and two 14-year-old boys he thought were his friends,
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he shot and killed Tariq Khamisa,
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this man's son.
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There are no words, there are no words
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that can express the loss of a child.
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At my understanding that my grandson was responsible
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for the murder of this human being,
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I went to the prayer closet, like I was taught by my old folks,
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and began to pray and meditate.
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The one thing that Mr. Khamisa and I have in common,
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and we didn't know this, besides being wonderful human beings,
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is that we both meditate.
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(Laughter)
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It was very helpful for me
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because it offered me an opportunity to seek guidance and clarity
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about how I wanted to be of support of this man and his family in this loss.
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And sure enough, my prayers were answered,
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because I was invited to a meeting at this man's house,
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met his mother, his father,
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his wife, his brother, met their family
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and had a chance to be in the presence of God-spirited people led by this man,
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who in the spirit of forgiveness,
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made way, made an opportunity for me
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to be of value and to share with him and to share with children
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the importance of understanding the need to be with a responsible adult,
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focus on your anger in a way that's healthy,
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learn to meditate.
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The programs that we have in the Tariq Khamisa Foundation
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provide so many tools for the kids to put in their toolkit
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so they could carry them throughout their lives.
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It's important that our children understand that loving, caring adults
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care for them and support them,
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but it's also important that our children learn to meditate,
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learn to be peaceful,
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learn to be centered
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and learn to interact with the other children
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in a kind, empathetic
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and wonderfully loving way.
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We need more love in our society
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and that's why we are here to share the love with children,
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because our children will lead the way for us,
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because all of us will depend on our children.
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As we grow older and retire, they will take over this world for us,
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so as much love as we teach them, they will give it back to us.
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Blessings. Thank you.
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(Applause)
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AK: So I was born in Kenya, I was educated in England,
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and my brother here is a Baptist.
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I practice as a Sufi Muslim.
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He's African American,
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but I always tell him, I'm the African American in the group.
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I was born in Africa. You were not.
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(Laughter)
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And I naturalized as a citizen.
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I'm a first-generation citizen.
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And I felt that, as an American citizen,
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I must take my share of the responsibility
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for the murder of my son.
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Why? Because it was fired by an American child.
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You could take the position, he killed my one and only son,
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he should be hung from the highest pole.
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How does that improve society?
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And I know you are probably wondering what happened to that young man.
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He's still in prison. He just turned 37 on September 22,
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but I have some good news.
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We've been trying to get him out for 12 years.
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He finally will join us a year from now.
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(Applause)
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And I'm very excited to have him join us,
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because I know we've saved him,
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but he will save tens of thousands of students
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when he shares his testimony
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in schools that we are present at on a regular basis.
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When he says to the kids, "When I was 11, I joined a gang.
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When I was 14, I murdered Mr. Khamisa's son.
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I've spent the last umpteen years in prison.
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I'm here to tell you: it's not worth it,"
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do you think the kids will listen to that voice?
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Yes, because his intonations
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will be of a person that pulled the trigger.
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And I know that he wants to turn the clock back.
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Of course, that's not possible.
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I wish it was. I would have my son back.
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My brother would have his grandson back.
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So I think that demonstrates the power of forgiveness.
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So what's the big takeaway here?
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So I want to end our session with this quote,
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which is the basis of my fourth book,
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which incidentally,
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the foreword for that book was written by Tony.
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So it goes like this: sustained goodwill creates friendship.
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You don't make friends by bombing them, right?
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You make friends by extending goodwill.
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That ought to be obvious.
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So sustained goodwill creates friendship,
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sustained friendship creates trust,
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sustained trust creates empathy,
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sustained empathy creates compassion,
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and sustained compassion creates peace.
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I call this my peace formula.
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It starts with goodwill, friendship, trust, empathy, compassion and peace.
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But people ask me, how do you extend goodwill
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to the person who murdered your child?
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I tell them, you do that through forgiveness.
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As it's evident it worked for me.
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It worked for my family.
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What's a miracle is it worked for Tony,
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it worked for his family,
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it can work for you and your family,
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for Israel and Palestine, North and South Korea,
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for Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Syria.
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It can work for the United States of America.
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So let me leave you with this, my sisters,
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and a couple of brothers --
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(Laughter)
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that peace is possible.
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How do I know that?
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Because I am at peace.
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Thank you very much. Namaste.
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(Applause)
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