Everyday Struggle: Switching Codes for Survival | Harold Wallace III | TEDxPittsburgStateUniversity

[Music] hello everybody hi hey greetings what's up howdy now that doesn't even sound right coming out of my mouth these are some of the things that you may not have to think about but me I wake up every morning and I look in the mirror and I try to figure out how can I present myself to this world without being seen as a threat actually how can I present myself to this world without being seen as a threat and also remaining myself at the same time that's tough tougher than you think let me tell you why that is my name is Harold Wallace the third I was born and raised in Los Angeles California not the glamorous Hollywood beautiful sunsets and beaches la that you might have seen in the movies but the real LA born in Inglewood California lived in Compton lived in Hawthorne and many other cities in the Los Angeles County but Inglewood has this really cool tagline and it's on all the billboards and all the signs and it says city of Champions which is true that's where the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings played they're in their glory years in the 90s right there in the Great Western forum in Inglewood California so let me tell you a little bit about my upbringing and why I have some of the struggles I have today I'm not sure if you guys are somewhat familiar with the gang violence and the gang culture that's in Los Angeles but did you know that there are over 450 active gangs in Los Angeles County with most of them being over 50 years old which means that there are gen on top of generations of generations of gang bangers bangers with over 45,000 members currently active right now outside of the prison system so imagine this walking out of your house looking both ways to cross the street and as you cross the street somebody walks up to you and says hey were you from I'll let you know now that those three words are the most intimidating and threatening words that you can hear as an african-american male in Los Angeles especially from someone that you have seen and will continue to see in your neighborhood daily so let me take a quick second to basically tell you guys and tell my parents thank you guys for letting me be here today my mother and my late father rest in peace but also want to apologize to my mother my beautiful mother because some of the information that I'm about to share with you all today is new news to you and new news to her as well now don't get me wrong some of the things that I'm about to say now may be a little bit rough but can you imagine seeing a man shot with the 12-gauge at the age of seven and not being able to tell anybody there's a certain amount of traumatic flashbacks and numbness and anxiety that comes with that what about being robbed at gunpoint at the age of 12 what about hearing sirens and gunshots so often and so close and proximity that they basically are regular day soundtrack for you these are some of the things that are amazingly wrong but normal to people who come from where I come from now I had to my business in the classroom not took care of business and actually around this time I was almost labeled with the behavior disorder because I like to talk during work time it took me to get to third grade before the teacher finally noticed that I wasn't simply talking I just wasn't being challenged my work was done faster and my work was correct and I was just wondering why everybody else wasn't done yet so because of the way I had to myself in school my parents didn't really bother me much they didn't care about the moves that I was making I was a lot more discreet about my moves unlike my older brother who was a lot more reckless and in-your-face with his gang affiliation but I basically learned how to carry myself on the streets and I learned how to carry myself in school and this is where the foundation is built for code switching code switching is basically the changing of one's language dialect and demeanor to fit the atmosphere that you're currently in one of the best to do it and on one of the biggest stages was our very own past President Obama you see here him shaking the hand of the assistant coach of the u.s. basketball team and then right next to him shaking the hand and embracing and Kevin Durant just a little bit different than the one before so he definitely was a professional at code-switch and you guys got an opportunity to see it now some of the things that come natural to the majority don't really come natural for me as a minority not just a regular minority I am a black man I am a bearded black man I'm a big pretty black man actually I'm a big bald bearded black man so I see things a little bit different when I'm walking down the street I noticed things when I'm holding the door for someone I notice things when I'm getting onto the elevator I notice things even working in higher education I noticed things basically I have to put forth an effort to do above and beyond to make sure that people feel comfortable within my presence so when I am walking down the street I put on a smile the closer I get to you to make sure that you know I'm a nice black man and then getting on the elevator I purposely move myself to the far corner so that you have as much room as you need to feel how you want but I always make sure that I ask which floor but lastly when I'm holding that door I put on the biggest smile possible because I want to make sure that that person understands that they are entering or exiting that building with the friendliest of black men so I was blessed to make it through my undergrad and my master's program with very little parental financial help and I'm very proud to say that but definitely ran into some obstacles and some walls that probably were there because I didn't have as much guidance as I probably needed which is why I'm in higher education today I basically want to be the person that I needed in college for our college students of today it was very discouraging to look on campus and try to look for someone that looked like me and I could not find them in administration faculty or staff in my university and if I did could they relate could they relate to my background in my upbringing and you know who can really relate to the smart kid from the inner-city hood then after working in higher education for a few years I quickly learned that one of the major reasons why it's not not many people that look like me and are from where I'm from working a higher education is because of the pay we all know that educators don't you pay what they deserve especially for playing a major role in molding our future leaders of tomorrow but maybe another reason just might be is that people who look like me understand the atmosphere in which I work in so this is the hard part I need everybody to get their mixing thing going everybody get your arm going like this for me okay I basically had to mix my upbringing in my background with my education and my schooling with my stature and my race and my gender it's almost like mixing up oil and water so I have my predominantly white institution that I work at now at Pittsburg State University I'm the assistant director in the office of student diversity but I just happen to want to work at the predominant institution in the predominately white corner of the predominantly white state as you guys can see here state of Kansas is 2.9 million with 86% of that being white but luckily here at Pittsburg State we don't deal with so many issues with blatant racism which is great but I cannot help but to think about the students that deal with microaggressions on a regular basis microaggressions are basically the comments or actions that are usually subtle and unintentional but express a I'm sorry expressed a prejudice towards a marginalized group so for instance asking a Hispanic student hey where are you from and they say oh I'm from Wichita and you say no but where are you from from that's a microaggression or telling an asian-american student in it hey you you will really talk English really well that's a microaggression or maybe even telling the african-american girl that hey you're really cute for a black girl as if there are levels of cuteness based on race I guess but those are a major microaggressions then they become overwhelming and more and more there's becoming more ways of showing your allegiance to one side or the other either that be your make America great again hats or your oldie but goodie Confederate flag anything you fill-in-the-blank the Confederate flags over everything but while you show your allegiance do you think about the discomfort that you may be causing to our minority population due to our current climate our current political climate so we really have an opportunity here the majority can really get rid of code-switching you guys have the power all you got to do is lie just lie I lie sometimes I'm sure everybody in here you lied before don't lie li e learn implement and embrace by learn I mean learn a little bit about yourself learn about your background learn about your history that's where self identity comes from but the most important thing is to learn about someone that looks different than you learn about a different race a different culture a different religion after you get that done you're ready for the next step implement use that education to put it into effect deal with that relationship with somebody that looks different have those conversations ask those questions I guarantee when a person knows the question is from a genuine place no matter how you word it you will get response actually I have a story about when I was a ninth grader and I was in world history class I was learning about all of these awesome religions of course the major for that really came up often where Christianity Buddhism Judaism and Islam three weeks later I found myself at the kiosk in the mall trying to get some new earrings you know trying to stay fly and I saw the man had a Koran next to his cash register so I said hey is that a Quran and he said yes and I saw oh that's cool like so are you a Muslim and with a little bit of hesitation he said yes I said oh man that's awesome so are you Sunni or Shia and when I said that he turned around with such amazement that a 14 year old black boy knew about the two major branches of Islam after that we had a 20-minute conversation about his thoughts and my thoughts and my assumptions and his assumptions and it was an awesome relation and at the end of it I ended up getting an awesome discount as well [Laughter] embrace embraces to basically support a belief a change a theory willingly and enthusiastically and that's the tough part right there willingly and enthusiastically we do all three of those things and we lie a little bit and we can make the world a better place so it was a really smart lady there is a really smart lady named Jane Elliott some of you guys might be familiar with some of her work but she shut down my definition for diversity I used to always say it's like a melting pot all of us just in there together just enjoying life and it's just harmonious and great she shut that down by basically saying we don't want a melting pot we want a solid bowl we want a salad bowl with different vegetables basically saying I want lettuce to be lettuce and cucumbers to be cucumbers and onions to be onions and tomatoes to be tomatoes and all be in the same place and coexist and be great and solids are good I had one yesterday but envision this a world where cold swishing doesn't no longer exist it's simply a concept that's taught in psychology and history class and we learn to love each other and a breaks embrace each other's differences and put forth the extra - the extra effort to learn about those differences man honestly it's as simple as this the minorities put forth so much effort but if the majority put at least 10% of that same effort into learning embracing understanding and engaging the minority population then the states could be a utopia for us all but that just wouldn't be America would it so until then our cold switch away because I have a family to feed and bills to pay thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 69,482

Rating: 4.9127803 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life

Id: NJy5yeBSQ7o

Length: 16min 2sec (962 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 06 2018