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We need to talk about an injustice Bryan Stevenson FILMED MAR 2012 POSTED MAR 2012 TED2012 httpswwwtedcomtalksbryanstevensonweneedtotalkaboutaninjustice Well this is a really extraordinary honor for me I spend most of my time in jails in prisons on death row I spend most of my time in very lowincome communities in the projects and places where theres a great deal of hopelessness And being here at TED and seeing the stimulation hearing it has been very very energizing to me And one of the things thats emerged in my short time here is that TED has an identity And you can actually say things here that have impacts around the world And sometimes when it comes through TED it has meaning and power that it doesnt have when it doesnt And I mention that because I think identity is really important And weve had some fantastic presentations And I think what weve learned is that if youre a teacher your words can be meaningful but if youre a compassionate teacher they can be especially meaningful If youre a doctor you can do some good things but if youre a caring doctor you can do some other things And so I want to talk about the power of identity And I didnt learn about this actually practicing law and doing the work that I do I actually learned about this from my grandmother I grew up in a house that was the traditional African American home that was dominated by a matriarch and that matriarch was my grandmother She was tough she was strong she was powerful She was the end of every argument in our family She was the beginning of a lot of arguments in our family She was the daughter of people who were actually enslavedHer parents were born in slavery in Virginia in the 1840s She was born in the 1880s and the experience of slavery very much shaped the way she saw the world And my grandmother was tough but she was also loving When I would see her as a little boy shed come up to me and shed give me these hugs And shed squeeze me so tight I could barely breathe and then shed let me go And an hour or two later if I saw her shed come over to me and shed say Bryan do you still feel me hugging you And if I said No shed assault me again and if I said Yes shed leave me alone And she just had this quality that you always wanted to be near her And the only challenge was that she had 10 children My mom was the youngest of her 10 kids And sometimes when I would go and spend time with her it would be difficult to get her time and attention My cousins would be running around everywhere And I remember when I was about eight or nine years old waking up one morning going into the living room and all of my cousins were running around And my grandmother was sitting across the room staring at me And at first I thought we were playing a game And I would look at her and Id smile but she was very serious And after about 15 or 20 minutes of this she got up and she came across the room and she took me by the hand and she said Come on Bryan You and I are going to have a talk And I remember this just like it happened yesterday I never will forget it She took me out back and she said Bryan Im going to tell you something but you dont tell anybody what I tell you I said Okay Mama She said Now you make sure you dont do that I said Sure Then she sat me down and she looked at me and she said I want you to know Ive been watching you And she said I think youre special She said I think you can do anything you want to do I will never forget it And then she said I just need you to promise me three things Bryan I said Okay Mama She said The first thing I want you to promise me is that youll always love your mom She said Thats my baby girl and you have to promise me now youll always take care of her Well I adored my mom so I said Yes Mama Ill do that Then she said The second thing I want you to promise me is that youll always do the right thing even when the right thing is the hard thing And I thought about it and I said Yes Mama Ill do that Then finally she said The third thing I want you to promise me is that youll never drink alcohol Laughter Well I was nine years old so I said Yes Mama Ill do that I grew up in the country in the rural South and I have a brother a year older than me and a sister a year younger When I was about 14 or 15 one day my brother came home and he had this sixpack of beer I dont know where he got it and he grabbed me and my sister and we went out in the woods And we were kind of just out there doing the stuff we crazily did And he had a sip of this beer and he gave some to my sister and she had some and they offered it to me I said No no no Thats okay You all go ahead Im not going to have any beer My brother said Come on Were doing this today you always do what we do I had some your sister had some Have some beer I said No I dont feel right about that Yall go ahead Yall go ahead And then my brother started staring at me He said Whats wrong with you Have some beer Then he looked at me real hard and he saidOh I hope youre not still hung up on that conversation Mama had with you Laughter I said Well what are you talking about He said Oh Mama tells all the grandkids that theyre special Laughter I was devastated Laughter And Im going to admit something to you Im going to tell you something I probably shouldnt I know this might be broadcast broadly But Im 52 years old and Im going to admit to you that Ive never had a drop of alcohol Applause I dont say that because I think thats virtuous I say that because there is power in identity When we create the right kind of identity we can say things to the world around us that they dont actually believe makes sense We can get them to do things that they dont think they can do When I thought about my grandmother of course she would think all her grandkids were special My grandfather was in prison during prohibition My male uncles died of alcoholrelated diseases And these were the things she thought we needed to commit to Well Ive been trying to say something about our criminal justice system This country is very different today than it was 40 years ago In 1972 there were 300000 people in jails and prisons Today there are 23 million The United States now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world We have seven million people on probation and parole And mass incarceration in my judgment has fundamentally changed our world In poor communities in communities of color there is this despair there is this hopelessness that is being shaped by these outcomes One out of three black men between the ages of 18 and 30 is in jail in prison on probation or parole In urban communities across this country Los Angeles Philadelphia Baltimore Washington 50 to 60 percent of all young men of color are in jail or prison or on probation or parole Our system isnt just being shaped in these ways that seem to be distorting around racetheyre also distorted by poverty We have a system of justice in this country that treats you much better if youre rich and guilty than if youre poor and innocent Wealth not culpabilityshapes outcomes And yet we seem to be very comfortable The politics of fear and angerhave made us believe that these are problems that are not our problems Weve been disconnected Its interesting to me Were looking at some very interesting developments in our work My state of Alabama like a number of states actually permanently disenfranchises you if you have a criminal conviction Right now in Alabama 34 percent of the black male populationhas permanently lost the right to vote Were actually projecting in another 10 years the level of disenfranchisement will be as high as its been since prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act And there is this stunning silence I represent children A lot of my clients are very young The United States is the only country in the world where we sentence 13yearold children to die in prison We have life imprisonment without parole for kids in this country And were actually doing some litigation The only country in the world I represent people on death row Its interesting this question of the death penalty In many ways weve been taught to think that the real question is do people deserve to die for the crimes theyve committed And thats a very sensible question But theres another way of thinking about where we are in our identity The other way of thinking about it is not do people deserve to die for the crimes they commit but do we deserve to kill I mean its fascinating Death penalty in America is defined by error For every nine people who have been executed weve actually identified one innocent person whos been exonerated and released from death row A kind of astonishing error rate one out of nine people innocent I mean its fascinating In aviation we would never let people fly on airplanes if for every nine planes that took off one would crash But somehow we can insulate ourselves from this problemIts not our problem Its not our burden Its not our struggle I talk a lot about these issues I talk about race and this question of whether we deserve to kill And its interesting when I teach my students about African American history I tell them about slavery I tell them about terrorism the era that began at the end of reconstruction that went on to World War II We dont really know very much about it But for African Americans in this country that was an era defined by terror In many communities people had to worry about being lynched They had to worry about being bombed It was the threat of terror that shaped their lives And these older people come up to me now and they say Mr Stevenson you give talks you make speeches you tell people to stop saying were dealing with terrorism for the first time in our nations historyafter 911 They tell me to say No tell them that we grew up with that And that era of terrorism of course was followed by segregation and decades of racial subordination and apartheid And yet we have in this country this dynamic where we really dont like to talk about our problems We dont like to talk about our history And because of that we really havent understood what its meant to do the things weve done historically Were constantly running into each other Were constantly creating tensions and conflicts We have a hard time talking about race and I believe its because we are unwilling to commit ourselves to a process of truth and reconciliation In South Africa people understood that we couldnt overcome apartheid without a commitment to truth and reconciliation In Rwanda even after the genocide there was this commitment but in this country we havent done that I was giving some lectures in Germany about the death penalty It was fascinating because one of the scholars stood up after the presentation and said Well you know its deeply troubling to hear what youre talking about He said We dont have the death penalty in Germany And of course we can never have the death penalty in Germany And the room got very quiet and this woman said Theres no way with our history we could ever engagein the systematic killing of human beings It would be unconscionable for us to in an intentional and deliberate way set about executing people And I thought about that What would it feel like to be living in a world where the nation state of Germany was executing people especially if they were disproportionately Jewish I couldnt bear it It would be unconscionable And yet in this country in the states of the Old South we execute people where youre 11 times more likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white than if the victim is black22 times more likely to get it if the defendant is black and the victim is white in the very states where there are buried in the ground the bodies of people who were lynched And yet there is this disconnect Well I believe that our identity is at risk That when we actually dont care about these difficult things the positive and wonderful things are nonetheless implicated We love innovation We love technology We love creativity We love entertainment But ultimatelythose realities are shadowed by suffering abuse degradation marginalization And for me it becomes necessary to integrate the two Because ultimately we are talking about a need to be more hopeful more committed more dedicated to the basic challenges of living in a complex world And for me that means spending time thinking and talking about the poor the disadvantaged those who will never get to TED But thinking about them in a way that is integrated in our own lives You know ultimately we all have to believe things we havent seen We do As rational as we are as committed to intellect as we are Innovation creativity development comes not from the ideas in our mind alone They come from the ideas in our mind that are also fueledby some conviction in our heart And its that mindheart connection that I believe compels us to not just be attentive to all the bright and dazzly things but also the dark and difficult things Vaclav Havel the great Czech leader talked about this He said When we were in Eastern Europe and dealing with oppression we wanted all kinds of things but mostly what we needed was hope an orientation of the spirit a willingness to sometimes be in hopeless places and be a witness Well that orientation of the spirit is very much at the core of what I believe even TED communities have to be engaged in There is no disconnect around technology and designthat will allow us to be fully human until we pay attention to suffering to poverty to exclusion to unfairness to injustice Now I will warn you that this kind of identity is a much more challenging identity than ones that dont pay attention to this It will get to you I had the great privilege when I was a young lawyer of meeting Rosa Parks And Ms Parks used to come back to Montgomery every now and then and she would get together with two of her dearest friends these older women Johnnie Carr who was the organizer of the Montgomery bus boycott amazing African American woman and Virginia Durr a white woman whose husband Clifford Durr represented Dr King And these women would get together and just talk And every now and then Ms Carr would call me and shed say Bryan Ms Parks is coming to town Were going to get together and talk Do you want to come over and listen And Id say Yes Maam I do And shed say Well what are you going to do when you get here I said Im going to listen And Id go over there and I would I would just listen It would be so energizing and so empowering And one time I was over there listening to these women talk and after a couple of hours Ms Parks turned to me and she said Now Bryan tell me what the Equal Justice Initiative isTell me what youre trying to do And I began giving her my rap I said Well were trying to challenge injustice Were trying to help people who have been wrongly convicted Were trying to confront bias and discrimination in the administration of criminal justice Were trying to end life without parole sentences for children Were trying to do something about the death penalty Were trying to reduce the prison population Were trying to end mass incarceration I gave her my whole rap and when I finished she looked at me and she said Mmm mmm mmm She said Thats going to make you tired tired tired Laughter And thats when Ms Carr leaned forward she put her finger in my face she said Thats why youve got to be brave brave brave And I actually believe that the TED community needs to be more courageous We need to find ways to embrace these challenges these problems the suffering Because ultimately our humanity depends on everyones humanity Ive learned very simple things doing the work that I do Its just taught me very simple things Ive come to understand and to believethat each of us is more than the worst thing weve ever done I believe that for every person on the planet I think if somebody tells a lie theyre not just a liar I think if somebody takes something that doesnt belong to them theyre not just a thief I think even if you kill someone youre not just a killer And because of that theres this basic human dignity that must be respected by law I also believe that in many parts of this country and certainly in many parts of this globe that the opposite of poverty is not wealth I dont believe that I actually think in too many places the opposite of poverty is justice And finally I believe that despite the fact that it is so dramatic and so beautiful and so inspiring and so stimulating we will ultimately not be judged by our technology we wont be judged by our design we wont be judged by our intellect and reason Ultimately you judge the character of a society not by how they treat their rich and the powerful and the privileged but by how they treat the poor the condemned the incarcerated Because its in that nexus that we actually begin to understand truly profound things about who we are I sometimes get out of balance Ill end with this story I sometimes push too hard I do get tired as we all do Sometimes those ideas get ahead of our thinking in ways that are important And Ive been representing these kids who have been sentenced to do these very harsh sentences And I go to the jail and I see my client whos 13 and 14 and hes been certified to stand trial as an adult I start thinking well how did that happen How can a judge turn you into something that youre not And the judge has certified him as an adult but I see this kid And I was up too late one night and I starting thinking well gosh if the judge can turn you into something that youre not the judge must have magic power Yeah Bryan the judge has some magic power You should ask for some of that And because I was up too late wasnt thinking real straight I started working on a motion And I had a client who was 14 years old a young poor black kid And I started working on this motion and the head of the motion was Motion to try my poor 14yearold black male client like a privileged white 75yearold corporate executive Applause And I put in my motion that there was prosecutorial misconduct and police misconduct and judicial misconduct There was a crazy line in there about how theres no conduct in this county its all misconduct And the next morning I woke up and I thought now did I dream that crazy motion or did I actually write it And to my horror not only had I written it but I had sent it to court Applause A couple months went by and I had just forgotten all about it And I finally decided oh gosh Ive got to go to the court and do this crazy case And I got into my car and I was feeling really overwhelmed overwhelmed And I got in my car and I went to this courthouse And I was thinking this is going to be so difficult so painful And I finally got out of the car and I started walking up to the courthouse And as I was walking up the steps of this courthouse there was an older black man who was the janitor in this courthouse When this man saw me he came over to me and he said Who are you I said Im a lawyer He said Youre a lawyer I said Yes sirAnd this man came over to me and he hugged me And he whispered in my ear He said Im so proud of you And I have to tell you it was energizing It connected deeply with something in me about identity about the capacity of every person to contribute to a community to a perspective that is hopeful Well I went into the courtroom And as soon as I walked inside the judge saw me coming in He said Mr Stevenson did you write this crazy motion I said Yes sir I did And we started arguing And people started coming in because they were just outraged I had written these crazy things And police officers were coming in and assistant prosecutors and clerk workers And before I knew it the courtroom was filled with people angry that we were talking about race that we were talking about poverty that we were talking about inequality And out of the corner of my eye I could see this janitor pacing back and forth And he kept looking through the window and he could hear all of this holler He kept pacing back and forth And finally this older black man with this very worried look on his face came into the courtroom and sat down behind me almost at counsel table About 10 minutes later the judge said we would take a break And during the break there was a deputy sheriff who was offended that the janitor had come into court And this deputy jumped up and he ran over to this older black man He said Jimmy what are you doing in this courtroom And this older black man stood up and he looked at that deputy and he looked at me and he said I came into this courtroom to tell this young man keep your eyes on the prize hold on Ive come to TED because I believe that many of you understand that the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice That we cannot be full evolved human beingsuntil we care about human rights and basic dignity That all of our survival is tied to the survival of everyone That our visions of technology and design and entertainment and creativity have to be married with visions of humanity compassion and justice And more than anything for those of you who share that Ive simply come to tell you to keep your eyes on the prize hold on Thank you very much Applause Discussion Chris Anderson So you heard and saw an obvious desire by this audience this communityto help you on your way and to do something on this issue Other than writing a checkwhat could we do BS Well there are opportunities all around us If you live in the state of California for example theres a referendum coming up this spring where actually theres going to be an effort to redirect some of the money we spend on the politics of punishment For example here in California were going to spend one billion dollars on the death penalty in the next five years one billion dollars And yet 46 percent of all homicide cases dont result in arrest56 percent of all rape cases dont result So theres an opportunity to change that And this referendum would propose having those dollars go to law enforcement and safety And I think that opportunity exists all around us CA Theres been this huge decline in crime in America over the last three decades And part of the narrative of that is sometimes that its about increased incarceration rates What would you say to someone who believed that BS Well actually the violent crime rate has remained relatively stable The great increase in mass incarceration in this country wasnt really in violent crime categories It was this misguided war on drugs Thats where the dramatic increases have come in our prison population And we got carried away with the rhetoric of punishment And so we have three strikes laws that put people in prison forever for stealing a bicycle for lowlevel property crimes rather than making them give those resources back to the people who they victimized I believe we need to do more to help people who are victimized by crime not do less And I think our current punishment philosophy does nothing for no one And I think thats the orientation that we have to change Applause CA Bryan youve struck a massive chord here Youre an inspiring person Thank you so much for coming to TED Thank you Applause
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We need to talk about an injustice Bryan Stevenson FILMED MAR 2012 POSTED MAR 2012 TED2012 httpswwwtedcomtalksbryanstevensonweneedtotalkaboutaninjustice Well this is a really extraordinary honor for me I spend most of my time in jails in prisons on death row I spend most of my time in very lowincome communities in the projects and places where theres a great deal of hopelessness And being here at TED and seeing the stimulation hearing it has been very very energizing to me And one of the things thats emerged in my short time here is that TED has an identity And you can actually say things here that have impacts around the world And sometimes when it comes through TED it has meaning and power that it doesnt have when it doesnt And I mention that because I think identity is really important And weve had some fantastic presentations And I think what weve learned is that if youre a teacher your words can be meaningful but if youre a compassionate teacher they can be especially meaningful If youre a doctor you can do some good things but if youre a caring doctor you can do some other things And so I want to talk about the power of identity And I didnt learn about this actually practicing law and doing the work that I do I actually learned about this from my grandmother I grew up in a house that was the traditional African American home that was dominated by a matriarch and that matriarch was my grandmother She was tough she was strong she was powerful She was the end of every argument in our family She was the beginning of a lot of arguments in our family She was the daughter of people who were actually enslavedHer parents were born in slavery in Virginia in the 1840s She was born in the 1880s and the experience of slavery very much shaped the way she saw the world And my grandmother was tough but she was also loving When I would see her as a little boy shed come up to me and shed give me these hugs And shed squeeze me so tight I could barely breathe and then shed let me go And an hour or two later if I saw her shed come over to me and shed say Bryan do you still feel me hugging you And if I said No shed assault me again and if I said Yes shed leave me alone And she just had this quality that you always wanted to be near her And the only challenge was that she had 10 children My mom was the youngest of her 10 kids And sometimes when I would go and spend time with her it would be difficult to get her time and attention My cousins would be running around everywhere And I remember when I was about eight or nine years old waking up one morning going into the living room and all of my cousins were running around And my grandmother was sitting across the room staring at me And at first I thought we were playing a game And I would look at her and Id smile but she was very serious And after about 15 or 20 minutes of this she got up and she came across the room and she took me by the hand and she said Come on Bryan You and I are going to have a talk And I remember this just like it happened yesterday I never will forget it She took me out back and she said Bryan Im going to tell you something but you dont tell anybody what I tell you I said Okay Mama She said Now you make sure you dont do that I said Sure Then she sat me down and she looked at me and she said I want you to know Ive been watching you And she said I think youre special She said I think you can do anything you want to do I will never forget it And then she said I just need you to promise me three things Bryan I said Okay Mama She said The first thing I want you to promise me is that youll always love your mom She said Thats my baby girl and you have to promise me now youll always take care of her Well I adored my mom so I said Yes Mama Ill do that Then she said The second thing I want you to promise me is that youll always do the right thing even when the right thing is the hard thing And I thought about it and I said Yes Mama Ill do that Then finally she said The third thing I want you to promise me is that youll never drink alcohol Laughter Well I was nine years old so I said Yes Mama Ill do that I grew up in the country in the rural South and I have a brother a year older than me and a sister a year younger When I was about 14 or 15 one day my brother came home and he had this sixpack of beer I dont know where he got it and he grabbed me and my sister and we went out in the woods And we were kind of just out there doing the stuff we crazily did And he had a sip of this beer and he gave some to my sister and she had some and they offered it to me I said No no no Thats okay You all go ahead Im not going to have any beer My brother said Come on Were doing this today you always do what we do I had some your sister had some Have some beer I said No I dont feel right about that Yall go ahead Yall go ahead And then my brother started staring at me He said Whats wrong with you Have some beer Then he looked at me real hard and he saidOh I hope youre not still hung up on that conversation Mama had with you Laughter I said Well what are you talking about He said Oh Mama tells all the grandkids that theyre special Laughter I was devastated Laughter And Im going to admit something to you Im going to tell you something I probably shouldnt I know this might be broadcast broadly But Im 52 years old and Im going to admit to you that Ive never had a drop of alcohol Applause I dont say that because I think thats virtuous I say that because there is power in identity When we create the right kind of identity we can say things to the world around us that they dont actually believe makes sense We can get them to do things that they dont think they can do When I thought about my grandmother of course she would think all her grandkids were special My grandfather was in prison during prohibition My male uncles died of alcoholrelated diseases And these were the things she thought we needed to commit to Well Ive been trying to say something about our criminal justice system This country is very different today than it was 40 years ago In 1972 there were 300000 people in jails and prisons Today there are 23 million The United States now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world We have seven million people on probation and parole And mass incarceration in my judgment has fundamentally changed our world In poor communities in communities of color there is this despair there is this hopelessness that is being shaped by these outcomes One out of three black men between the ages of 18 and 30 is in jail in prison on probation or parole In urban communities across this country Los Angeles Philadelphia Baltimore Washington 50 to 60 percent of all young men of color are in jail or prison or on probation or parole Our system isnt just being shaped in these ways that seem to be distorting around racetheyre also distorted by poverty We have a system of justice in this country that treats you much better if youre rich and guilty than if youre poor and innocent Wealth not culpabilityshapes outcomes And yet we seem to be very comfortable The politics of fear and angerhave made us believe that these are problems that are not our problems Weve been disconnected Its interesting to me Were looking at some very interesting developments in our work My state of Alabama like a number of states actually permanently disenfranchises you if you have a criminal conviction Right now in Alabama 34 percent of the black male populationhas permanently lost the right to vote Were actually projecting in another 10 years the level of disenfranchisement will be as high as its been since prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act And there is this stunning silence I represent children A lot of my clients are very young The United States is the only country in the world where we sentence 13yearold children to die in prison We have life imprisonment without parole for kids in this country And were actually doing some litigation The only country in the world I represent people on death row Its interesting this question of the death penalty In many ways weve been taught to think that the real question is do people deserve to die for the crimes theyve committed And thats a very sensible question But theres another way of thinking about where we are in our identity The other way of thinking about it is not do people deserve to die for the crimes they commit but do we deserve to kill I mean its fascinating Death penalty in America is defined by error For every nine people who have been executed weve actually identified one innocent person whos been exonerated and released from death row A kind of astonishing error rate one out of nine people innocent I mean its fascinating In aviation we would never let people fly on airplanes if for every nine planes that took off one would crash But somehow we can insulate ourselves from this problemIts not our problem Its not our burden Its not our struggle I talk a lot about these issues I talk about race and this question of whether we deserve to kill And its interesting when I teach my students about African American history I tell them about slavery I tell them about terrorism the era that began at the end of reconstruction that went on to World War II We dont really know very much about it But for African Americans in this country that was an era defined by terror In many communities people had to worry about being lynched They had to worry about being bombed It was the threat of terror that shaped their lives And these older people come up to me now and they say Mr Stevenson you give talks you make speeches you tell people to stop saying were dealing with terrorism for the first time in our nations historyafter 911 They tell me to say No tell them that we grew up with that And that era of terrorism of course was followed by segregation and decades of racial subordination and apartheid And yet we have in this country this dynamic where we really dont like to talk about our problems We dont like to talk about our history And because of that we really havent understood what its meant to do the things weve done historically Were constantly running into each other Were constantly creating tensions and conflicts We have a hard time talking about race and I believe its because we are unwilling to commit ourselves to a process of truth and reconciliation In South Africa people understood that we couldnt overcome apartheid without a commitment to truth and reconciliation In Rwanda even after the genocide there was this commitment but in this country we havent done that I was giving some lectures in Germany about the death penalty It was fascinating because one of the scholars stood up after the presentation and said Well you know its deeply troubling to hear what youre talking about He said We dont have the death penalty in Germany And of course we can never have the death penalty in Germany And the room got very quiet and this woman said Theres no way with our history we could ever engagein the systematic killing of human beings It would be unconscionable for us to in an intentional and deliberate way set about executing people And I thought about that What would it feel like to be living in a world where the nation state of Germany was executing people especially if they were disproportionately Jewish I couldnt bear it It would be unconscionable And yet in this country in the states of the Old South we execute people where youre 11 times more likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white than if the victim is black22 times more likely to get it if the defendant is black and the victim is white in the very states where there are buried in the ground the bodies of people who were lynched And yet there is this disconnect Well I believe that our identity is at risk That when we actually dont care about these difficult things the positive and wonderful things are nonetheless implicated We love innovation We love technology We love creativity We love entertainment But ultimatelythose realities are shadowed by suffering abuse degradation marginalization And for me it becomes necessary to integrate the two Because ultimately we are talking about a need to be more hopeful more committed more dedicated to the basic challenges of living in a complex world And for me that means spending time thinking and talking about the poor the disadvantaged those who will never get to TED But thinking about them in a way that is integrated in our own lives You know ultimately we all have to believe things we havent seen We do As rational as we are as committed to intellect as we are Innovation creativity development comes not from the ideas in our mind alone They come from the ideas in our mind that are also fueledby some conviction in our heart And its that mindheart connection that I believe compels us to not just be attentive to all the bright and dazzly things but also the dark and difficult things Vaclav Havel the great Czech leader talked about this He said When we were in Eastern Europe and dealing with oppression we wanted all kinds of things but mostly what we needed was hope an orientation of the spirit a willingness to sometimes be in hopeless places and be a witness Well that orientation of the spirit is very much at the core of what I believe even TED communities have to be engaged in There is no disconnect around technology and designthat will allow us to be fully human until we pay attention to suffering to poverty to exclusion to unfairness to injustice Now I will warn you that this kind of identity is a much more challenging identity than ones that dont pay attention to this It will get to you I had the great privilege when I was a young lawyer of meeting Rosa Parks And Ms Parks used to come back to Montgomery every now and then and she would get together with two of her dearest friends these older women Johnnie Carr who was the organizer of the Montgomery bus boycott amazing African American woman and Virginia Durr a white woman whose husband Clifford Durr represented Dr King And these women would get together and just talk And every now and then Ms Carr would call me and shed say Bryan Ms Parks is coming to town Were going to get together and talk Do you want to come over and listen And Id say Yes Maam I do And shed say Well what are you going to do when you get here I said Im going to listen And Id go over there and I would I would just listen It would be so energizing and so empowering And one time I was over there listening to these women talk and after a couple of hours Ms Parks turned to me and she said Now Bryan tell me what the Equal Justice Initiative isTell me what youre trying to do And I began giving her my rap I said Well were trying to challenge injustice Were trying to help people who have been wrongly convicted Were trying to confront bias and discrimination in the administration of criminal justice Were trying to end life without parole sentences for children Were trying to do something about the death penalty Were trying to reduce the prison population Were trying to end mass incarceration I gave her my whole rap and when I finished she looked at me and she said Mmm mmm mmm She said Thats going to make you tired tired tired Laughter And thats when Ms Carr leaned forward she put her finger in my face she said Thats why youve got to be brave brave brave And I actually believe that the TED community needs to be more courageous We need to find ways to embrace these challenges these problems the suffering Because ultimately our humanity depends on everyones humanity Ive learned very simple things doing the work that I do Its just taught me very simple things Ive come to understand and to believethat each of us is more than the worst thing weve ever done I believe that for every person on the planet I think if somebody tells a lie theyre not just a liar I think if somebody takes something that doesnt belong to them theyre not just a thief I think even if you kill someone youre not just a killer And because of that theres this basic human dignity that must be respected by law I also believe that in many parts of this country and certainly in many parts of this globe that the opposite of poverty is not wealth I dont believe that I actually think in too many places the opposite of poverty is justice And finally I believe that despite the fact that it is so dramatic and so beautiful and so inspiring and so stimulating we will ultimately not be judged by our technology we wont be judged by our design we wont be judged by our intellect and reason Ultimately you judge the character of a society not by how they treat their rich and the powerful and the privileged but by how they treat the poor the condemned the incarcerated Because its in that nexus that we actually begin to understand truly profound things about who we are I sometimes get out of balance Ill end with this story I sometimes push too hard I do get tired as we all do Sometimes those ideas get ahead of our thinking in ways that are important And Ive been representing these kids who have been sentenced to do these very harsh sentences And I go to the jail and I see my client whos 13 and 14 and hes been certified to stand trial as an adult I start thinking well how did that happen How can a judge turn you into something that youre not And the judge has certified him as an adult but I see this kid And I was up too late one night and I starting thinking well gosh if the judge can turn you into something that youre not the judge must have magic power Yeah Bryan the judge has some magic power You should ask for some of that And because I was up too late wasnt thinking real straight I started working on a motion And I had a client who was 14 years old a young poor black kid And I started working on this motion and the head of the motion was Motion to try my poor 14yearold black male client like a privileged white 75yearold corporate executive Applause And I put in my motion that there was prosecutorial misconduct and police misconduct and judicial misconduct There was a crazy line in there about how theres no conduct in this county its all misconduct And the next morning I woke up and I thought now did I dream that crazy motion or did I actually write it And to my horror not only had I written it but I had sent it to court Applause A couple months went by and I had just forgotten all about it And I finally decided oh gosh Ive got to go to the court and do this crazy case And I got into my car and I was feeling really overwhelmed overwhelmed And I got in my car and I went to this courthouse And I was thinking this is going to be so difficult so painful And I finally got out of the car and I started walking up to the courthouse And as I was walking up the steps of this courthouse there was an older black man who was the janitor in this courthouse When this man saw me he came over to me and he said Who are you I said Im a lawyer He said Youre a lawyer I said Yes sirAnd this man came over to me and he hugged me And he whispered in my ear He said Im so proud of you And I have to tell you it was energizing It connected deeply with something in me about identity about the capacity of every person to contribute to a community to a perspective that is hopeful Well I went into the courtroom And as soon as I walked inside the judge saw me coming in He said Mr Stevenson did you write this crazy motion I said Yes sir I did And we started arguing And people started coming in because they were just outraged I had written these crazy things And police officers were coming in and assistant prosecutors and clerk workers And before I knew it the courtroom was filled with people angry that we were talking about race that we were talking about poverty that we were talking about inequality And out of the corner of my eye I could see this janitor pacing back and forth And he kept looking through the window and he could hear all of this holler He kept pacing back and forth And finally this older black man with this very worried look on his face came into the courtroom and sat down behind me almost at counsel table About 10 minutes later the judge said we would take a break And during the break there was a deputy sheriff who was offended that the janitor had come into court And this deputy jumped up and he ran over to this older black man He said Jimmy what are you doing in this courtroom And this older black man stood up and he looked at that deputy and he looked at me and he said I came into this courtroom to tell this young man keep your eyes on the prize hold on Ive come to TED because I believe that many of you understand that the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice That we cannot be full evolved human beingsuntil we care about human rights and basic dignity That all of our survival is tied to the survival of everyone That our visions of technology and design and entertainment and creativity have to be married with visions of humanity compassion and justice And more than anything for those of you who share that Ive simply come to tell you to keep your eyes on the prize hold on Thank you very much Applause Discussion Chris Anderson So you heard and saw an obvious desire by this audience this communityto help you on your way and to do something on this issue Other than writing a checkwhat could we do BS Well there are opportunities all around us If you live in the state of California for example theres a referendum coming up this spring where actually theres going to be an effort to redirect some of the money we spend on the politics of punishment For example here in California were going to spend one billion dollars on the death penalty in the next five years one billion dollars And yet 46 percent of all homicide cases dont result in arrest56 percent of all rape cases dont result So theres an opportunity to change that And this referendum would propose having those dollars go to law enforcement and safety And I think that opportunity exists all around us CA Theres been this huge decline in crime in America over the last three decades And part of the narrative of that is sometimes that its about increased incarceration rates What would you say to someone who believed that BS Well actually the violent crime rate has remained relatively stable The great increase in mass incarceration in this country wasnt really in violent crime categories It was this misguided war on drugs Thats where the dramatic increases have come in our prison population And we got carried away with the rhetoric of punishment And so we have three strikes laws that put people in prison forever for stealing a bicycle for lowlevel property crimes rather than making them give those resources back to the people who they victimized I believe we need to do more to help people who are victimized by crime not do less And I think our current punishment philosophy does nothing for no one And I think thats the orientation that we have to change Applause CA Bryan youve struck a massive chord here Youre an inspiring person Thank you so much for coming to TED Thank you Applause