Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent | Safwat Saleem

223,172 views ・ 2016-08-15

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Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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I used to have this recurring dream
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where I'd walk into a roomful of people,
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and I'd try not to make eye contact with anyone.
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Until someone notices me,
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and I just panic.
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And the person walks up to me,
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and says, "Hi, my name is So-and-so.
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And what is your name?"
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And I'm just quiet, unable to respond.
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After some awkward silence, he goes,
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"Have you forgotten your name?"
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And I'm still quiet.
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And then, slowly, all the other people in the room begin to turn toward me
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and ask, almost in unison,
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(Voice-over, several voices) "Have you forgotten your name?"
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As the chant gets louder, I want to respond, but I don't.
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I'm a visual artist.
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Some of my work is humorous,
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and some is a bit funny but in a sad way.
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And one thing that I really enjoy doing
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is making these little animations
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where I get to do the voice-over for all kinds of characters.
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I've been a bear.
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(Video) Bear (Safwat Saleem's voice): Hi.
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(Laughter)
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Safwat Saleem: I've been a whale.
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(Video) Whale (SS's voice): Hi.
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(Laughter)
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SS: I've been a greeting card.
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(Video) Greeting card (SS's voice): Hi.
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(Laughter)
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SS: And my personal favorite is Frankenstein's monster.
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(Video) Frankenstein's monster (SS's voice): (Grunts)
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(Laughter)
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SS: I just had to grunt a lot for that one.
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A few years ago, I made this educational video
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about the history of video games.
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And for that one, I got to do the voice of Space Invader.
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(Video) Space Invader (SS's voice): Hi.
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SS: A dream come true, really,
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(Laughter)
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And when that video was posted online,
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I just sat there on the computer, hitting "refresh,"
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excited to see the response.
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The first comment comes in.
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(Video) Comment: Great job.
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SS: Yes!
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I hit "refresh."
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(Video) Comment: Excellent video. I look forward to the next one.
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SS: This was just the first of a two-part video.
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I was going to work on the second one next.
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I hit "refresh."
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(Video) Comment: Where is part TWO? WHEREEEEE? I need it NOWWWWW!: P
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(Laughter)
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SS: People other than my mom were saying nice things about me,
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on the Internet!
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It felt like I had finally arrived.
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I hit "refresh."
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(Video) Comment: His voice is annoying. No offense.
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SS: OK, no offense taken. Refresh.
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(Video) Comment: Could you remake this without peanut butter in your mouth?
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SS: OK, at least the feedback is somewhat constructive. Hit "refresh."
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(Video) Comment: Please don't use this narrator again
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u can barely understand him.
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SS: Refresh.
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(Video) Comment: Couldn't follow because of the Indian accent.
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SS: OK, OK, OK, two things.
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Number one, I don't have an Indian accent,
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I have a Pakistani accent, OK?
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And number two, I clearly have a Pakistani accent.
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(Laughter)
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But comments like that kept coming in,
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so I figured I should just ignore them
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and start working on the second part of the video.
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I recorded my audio,
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but every time I sat down to edit,
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I just could not do it.
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Every single time, it would take me back to my childhood,
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when I had a much harder time speaking.
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I've stuttered for as long as I can remember.
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I was the kid in class
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who would never raise his hand when he had a question --
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or knew the answer.
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Every time the phone rang,
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I would run to the bathroom so I would not have to answer it.
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If it was for me, my parents would say I'm not around.
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I spent a lot of time in the bathroom.
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And I hated introducing myself,
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especially in groups.
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I'd always stutter on my name, and there was usually someone who'd go,
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"Have you forgotten your name?"
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And then everybody would laugh.
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That joke never got old.
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(Laughter)
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I spent my childhood feeling that if I spoke,
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it would become obvious that there was something wrong with me,
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that I was not normal.
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So I mostly stayed quiet.
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And so you see, eventually for me to even be able to use my voice in my work
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was a huge step for me.
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Every time I record audio,
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I fumble my way through saying each sentence many, many times,
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and then I go back in
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and pick the ones where I think I suck the least.
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(Voice-over) SS: Audio editing is like Photoshop for your voice.
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I can slow it down, speed it up, make it deeper, add an echo.
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And if I stutter along the way, and if I stutter along the way,
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I just go back in and fix it.
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It's magic.
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SS: Using my highly edited voice in my work
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was a way for me to finally sound normal to myself.
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But after the comments on the video,
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it no longer made me feel normal.
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And so I stopped using my voice in my work.
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Since then, I've thought a lot about what it means to be normal.
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And I've come to understand
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that "normal" has a lot to do with expectations.
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Let me give you an example.
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I came across this story
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about the Ancient Greek writer, Homer.
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Now, Homer mentions very few colors in his writing.
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And even when he does,
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he seems to get them quite a bit wrong.
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For example, the sea is described as wine red,
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people's faces are sometimes green and sheep are purple.
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But it's not just Homer.
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If you look at all of the ancient literature --
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Ancient Chinese, Icelandic, Greek, Indian
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and even the original Hebrew Bible --
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they all mention very few colors.
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And the most popular theory for why that might be the case
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is that cultures begin to recognize a color
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only once they have the ability to make that color.
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So basically, if you can make a color,
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only then can you see it.
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A color like red, which was fairly easy for many cultures to make --
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they began to see that color fairly early on.
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But a color like blue, which was much harder to make --
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many cultures didn't begin to learn how to make that color
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until much later.
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They didn't begin to see it until much later as well.
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So until then, even though a color might be all around them,
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they simply did not have the ability to see it.
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It was invisIble.
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It was not a part of their normal.
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And that story has helped put my own experience into context.
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So when I first read the comments on the video,
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my initial reaction was to take it all very personally.
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But the people commenting did not know
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how self-conscious I am about my voice.
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They were mostly reacting to my accent,
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that it is not normal for a narrator to have an accent.
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But what is normal, anyway?
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We know that reviewers will find more spelling errors in your writing
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if they think you're black.
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We know that professors are less likely to help female or minority students.
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And we know that resumes with white-sounding names
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get more callbacks than resumes with black-sounding names.
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Why is that?
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Because of our expectations of what is normal.
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We think it is normal
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when a black student has spelling errors.
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We think it is normal
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when a female or minority student does not succeed.
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And we think it is normal
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that a white employee is a better hire than a black employee.
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But studies also show that discrimination of this kind,
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in most cases, is simply favoritism,
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and it results more from wanting to help people that you can relate to
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than the desire to harm people that you can't relate to.
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And not relating to people starts at a very early age.
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Let me give you an example.
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One library that keeps track of characters
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in the children's book collection every year,
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found that in 2014, only about 11 percent of the books
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had a character of color.
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And just the year before, that number was about eight percent,
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even though half of American children today come from a minority background.
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Half.
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So there are two big issues here.
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Number one, children are told that they can be anything,
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they can do anything,
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and yet, most stories that children of color consume
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are about people who are not like them.
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Number two is that majority groups don't get to realize
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the great extent to which they are similar to minorities --
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our everyday experiences, our hopes,
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our dreams, our fears
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and our mutual love for hummus.
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It's delicious!
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(Laughter)
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Just like the color blue for Ancient Greeks,
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minorities are not a part of what we consider normal,
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because normal is simply a construction of what we've been exposed to,
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and how visible it is around us.
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And this is where things get a bit difficult.
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I can accept the preexisting notion of normal -- that normal is good,
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and anything outside of that very narrow definition of normal is bad.
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Or I can challenge that preexisting notion of normal
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with my work
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and with my voice
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and with my accent
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and by standing here onstage,
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even though I'm scared shitless and would rather be in the bathroom.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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(Video) Sheep (SS's voice): I'm now slowly starting to use my voice
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in my work again.
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And it feels good.
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It does not mean I won't have a breakdown
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the next time a couple dozen people say that I talk
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(Mumbling) like I have peanut butter in my mouth.
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(Laughter)
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SS: It just means I now have a much better understanding
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of what's at stake,
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and how giving up is not an option.
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The Ancient Greeks didn't just wake up one day and realize
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that the sky was blue.
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It took centuries, even, for humans to realize what we had been ignoring
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for so long.
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And so we must continuously challenge our notion of normal,
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because doing so is going to allow us as a society
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to finally see the sky for what it is.
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(Video) Characters: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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Frankenstein's monster: (Grunts)
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(Laughter)
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SS: Thank you.
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(Applause)
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