Billy Porter - Boston Conservatory at Berklee Commencement Address 2018

okay what's up y'all now listen they don't stole all my words you know they stole everything you just stole my quote without my speech girl it's all good it's all good I'm just saying that to say that you know I have been researching a lot of speeches online and you know I have and I know you know I know that in this moment it's my duty to inspire you all and I'm gonna try but I'm just gonna give a warning first this speech contains very liberal content I'm just telling y'all now that's what it contains I've been getting myself in trouble on the road so I'm just gonna warn you so you can cleave now or cover your ears but it's liberal yes I'm a person who's generally inspirational if I may say so myself however recently as a result of the state of our union I have found myself at a loss since night since the 2016 election I I really haven't been doing so great I made myself sick with worry I lost 30 pounds I've been filled with rage and horrified beyond belief as to how quickly we as humans can forget our collective past and therefore doom ourselves to repeating the tragic mistakes again and again and again I wish I could tell you that I was gonna give you some wisdom that you've never heard before or say some cliche that you haven't been exposed to all your life hashtag blessed I wish I could kiss the wounds and make everything better but I can't that wouldn't be fair to you and in the world that's swirling with lies daily alternative facts and fake news it's our duty as adults to tell you divas the truth so I'm gonna start with my truth you know I come from the Pentecostal church and they and they always say you can't have a testimony unless you have a test come on here so I'm going to talk to y'all about my testimony for a bed I want to talk on the subject of dreams for a minute you know I've always had big ones I've had huge dreams dreams of being a star dreams of changing the world but there was something inside of me early on I could feel it I I was different talented yes some would even say I was gifted but that thing there was that thing inside me that made people around me uncomfortable suspicious even that thing that caused my well-intentioned mama to send me to the psychologist when I was five years old to have me evaluated and after years worth of one-on-one sessions after school on every hump day the doctor's diagnosis was he's buying you just need to get a man around the house teaching to be more of a man that thing inside me that gave up permission to think they could abuse me in my own home with no consequences hashtag me to that thing inside me that brought on bullying at my school terrorization by my church the flat-out being beaten in the streets by six young men coming home late night from dance class while the neighborhood stood by and watched and not a single person stepping in to save me so I took it upon myself to save myself and I have a secret weapon I had talent I had a gift I could sing I had dreams at the beginning my dreams were self-motivated my dreams were simple at eleven years old I understood that I had to get out that little church voice inside my head was shriek whatever you do girl get the out of there first and worry about heaven later y'all don't even know what that's from like she said miss Clampett y'all don't even know who the Clampetts are do you [Laughter] but I knew I had to get out so I chose Cho business you guys I show business that's the best way to heal right I mean really so my first day of acting class at Carnegie Mellon University I went to Carnegie Mellon yes we love vocoder you know my professor said you can't be a great actor unless you know who you are and honor your authentic self to thine own self be true however in the next unspoken breath it was clear that the professor was talking to people without that thing inside of them the next four years of training for me was an exercise in confusion and delusion at the end of the first semester of my sophomore year I received a final probation letter because the voice and speech teacher voice and speech professor felt and I quote your voice is too high for the American stage and you'll never work but this is my authentic voice but you know to thine own self be true accept that thing except you it's easy to be who you are when what you are is what's popular and if this thing inside of me was going to keep me on the margins then what happens to my dreams racism and society's religious and government sanction homophobia froze my dreams in time the maturation and expansion of my dreams was thwarted by these institutions in ways that was so insidious I didn't even realize I was ensnared into an unconscious self-hate that almost took me out of here the first decade of my career was a land mine of Don't Ask Don't Tell compromises that left me bruised confused and empty I had to come to Jesus moment when I in 1996 Rosie O'Donnell invited me to be a guest on her wildly popular morning television show to promote my R&B album entitled I was signed to A&M Records at the time and had been schooled by the record executives to keep my mouth shut except when singing so that my true nature that thing wouldn't be detected in the urban music business which was at the time riddled with institutionally aggressive poisonous and inhumane homophobia just as I was about to go out for my interview my record handle my record handler flippantly tossed off in my direction don't speak I mean after realizing that he had blurted that out in his outside voice he tried to pull him back clean it up I mean try not to talk too much but he actually said those words to me don't speak and there it was I was officially silenced the on-camera interview was a disaster Rosie's crack-of-dawn effervescence was met with rigid one-word answers from me my tongue was tied my spirit was broken Rosie saw silencing death in when a commercial break she leaned in what's happening nothing what happened nothing I was petrified she pressed my office after the show no when I got to her office with tears streaming down my face she wrapped her arms around me whispered in my ear and planted a seed of empowerment in me that was the start of something new you are enough [Applause] not soon after that my record deal imploded and I found myself dealing with the wreckage of failure but not just failure you know because my nature had my true nature had been chipped away and whittled down to nothing I realized that I had failed as somebody else and that hashtag sucked real bad but here's the thing we learn far more from our failures than we do from our successes it was in that moment that I realized my dreams needed to shift my dreams needed to expand so I chose myself over my circumstance I chose my sanity over my fame in the second decade of my career I found myself in search of understanding for the real truth from my real authentic self and I stumbled on no no no no I was actually purposefully watching Oprah as I was wanting to do and Maya Angelou was on and a young advance aunt was on the show and they were speaking about service they said if service is the intention all the rest will take care of itself hmm interesting so I asked myself how can I be of service to something other than myself and my bank account and my ego in an industry that's inherently narcissistic and the answer hit me like a ton of bricks be your true authentic self with every fiber of your being with every piece of your soul no matter the price authenticity isn't always easy your truth may not always align with the world around you and that's okay be authentic anyway when you respect yourself you teach others around you how to do the same it's not easy it takes time it's been 13 years under what I thought in the moment was the precipice of virtual obscurity the work dried up I had to file for bankruptcy a couch surfed for ostensibly a decade overstaying my welcome and trying the patience of many a good friend many lost faith in me many gave up on me but I never gave up on me I never gave up on my dreams you know in the beginning my dreams were naive they were based on and springboarded off the things that I had already seen but oh to be blessed beyond your wildest imagination hope and possibility are all we have to lean on in these dark times my mother used to tell me that God has bigger plans for you than you could ever have dreamed for yourself my dreams have always been over-the-top so I didn't understand what she meant by that until now never in a million years did I think that my dreams could look like this singer dancer actress and model songwriter teacher mentor director playwright activist husband my husband's sitting right over there and that's the poorest man honorary doctorate candidate for the second time and then came kinky boots miss Lola the Tony Award the Grammy Award being the first african-american out gay man to have his name above the title in a Broadway musical with shuffle along you know it's not a thing they ain't talking about it but we should be talking about it and now after decades of feeling ignored and dismissed because of that thing because of that very thing I'm standing on the precipice of the kind of art as activism work that will change the world forever on June 3rd you will be able to see me every week as a series regular on Ryan Murphy Brad Falchuk and Stephen Cannell seminal new epic series posed which will air on FX and all of this as me all of this because I chose my authenticity being an artist is a gift it's a blessing to be chosen and we have the power to connect the seemingly unconnected we are living in a time of uncertainty unconnected Ness it is our responsibility as artists in this moment to teach the world how to reconnect now this is what you stole from me the artist James Baldwin says it's an artists job to disturb the peace and I take my job very seriously and from this day on I challenge you all to do the same don't listen when they try to sell and silence you by telling you to shut up and sing or just be quiet and dance or dribble that basketball because your opinion doesn't matter ok maybe the basketball thing is a stretch in this room but don't know what I'm talking about your opinion matters you are necessary we in the adults in the room need you all now more than ever to engage with the world and give us something new show us more to see so Boston is turbid so Boston Conservatory diva class of 2018 now I think I need to change that though at Berkeley right so Boston Conservatory at Berkeley diva class of 2018 I stand before you today as a living breathing representation of possibility like I said before I never dreamed it could look like this I never knew how to dream this big this huge but now I know and on my own terms I want to thank Boston Conservatory the faculty everybody who chose me to be here I'm so so humbled I'm so grateful to have been blessed long enough to see this day to live in these times and now it's your turn you're the lead character in your very own classic hero's journey we all are what story are you going to tell make a conscious decision be authentic be courageous be compassionate employ empathy remember to live remember to laugh remember to love remember to breathe remember to choose you remember to share that you with the world stand up for truth stand up for equality stand up for something or you will fall for anything be fearless and on that note I want to leave you just with one of my favorite quotes from spiritual thought leader Marianne Williamson she says our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure it is our light not our darkness that most frightens us we ask ourselves Who am I to be brilliant gorgeous talented fabulous actually who are you not to be you are a child of God you're playing small does not serve the world there is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel secure around you what won't feel insecure around you we are all meant to shine as children do we were born to make manifest the glory of God that it was that is within us and it's not just in some of us it's in everyone and as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same as we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others remember to dream beyond your wildest imagination and on your own terms god bless y'all god bless america you you

Channel: Berklee College of Music

Views: 6,711

Rating: 4.7788944 out of 5

Keywords: William, Porter, Tony, Grammy, Commencement, Boston Conservatory, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Musical Theater, honorary doctorate, berklee, billy porter

Id: yRZaDabSbbI

Length: 19min 3sec (1143 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 12 2018