Freedom and Purpose, it's what we all want | Bianca Olthoff | TEDxOaksChristianSchool

the first time I went to prison I swore I would never go back I looked into a cell at a woman's name who I do not know but a face I could never forget she looked at me the day before she was gonna be transferred to death row at a penitentiary up north and she whispered I want my life to matter now before you think I shanked someone with the Shiv and served hard time in a pen let me pop this suburban bubble real quick I was 26 years old bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and a friend of mine who worked for Los Angeles Correctional Facility invited me into prison to share with a group of women I had just graduated graduate school and I felt like it was a wonderful opportunity to be able to give back to my own community had I known then that there will be a million eleven million people in the jail system in this great country this year alone I've might have been discouraged I might have even been dissuaded at the statistic that every three out of four inmates will go back and be re-incarcerated I might even been depressed over the statistic that there are more prisons and jails in there are colleges and universities but not to be outdone I was excited to give back and take a look at the sea of faces that stood before me but the reason why I said yes is in thinking about this is these women we're living a life that I could have even easily led according to statistics I could have been repeating the generational cycle of those that have gone before me living on the concrete streets of Los Angeles these women I thought were very different from me but were they I'm a first generation American I can't I was raised in the hood I was a recipient of donated clothes and food I was academically illiterate I couldn't read write or spell at the age of 12 and I was obese growing up according to statistics I could have been repeating the generational cycles again and again and again I prepared a talk and I was excited to be able to walk into this room to a sea of completely uninterested faces some with tattoos on their necks creeping up to their face telling me and my momma where we could go and I was excited that was it that was funny friends that was not scary okay I loved it to decieve disinterested faces and I had prepared a talk on succeeding and overcoming a surprisingly the message was received very well and hearts were open but I think that the walls began to dissipate when I gave them a particular assignment we all kind of got cozy and got to know each other and I gave him the piece of paper and I gave them a pencil and I said the assignment is to write down the one thing that you want in this moment of your life surprisingly the predominant I got two predominant responses the first one was freedom which shouldn't be a surprise right I mean who wouldn't want to get out of jail but how they express and articulated freedom is different than you and I might think women went around the room and said I want to be free of addiction I want to be free to dream again I want to be free to be with my children I want to be free to live the life that I thought maybe once I could I saw the broken humanity in their chicken-scratch writings on index cards with prison approved dole golf pencils I was excited and I felt like we had a moment I was packing up my stuff to leave when a prison guard had made his way over to me during the presentation I saw a woman who was watching our gathering behind a cell it was a plexiglass wall huge Plexiglas wall and there was small holes that she is able to communicate to the guards or in this case listening to our presentation I caught hers and the guard had informed me that this woman was being taken to death row at a penitentiary up north the very next day but she had requested to speak with me before I could even process what he said he assured me over to her and they introduced myself in hushed tones she looked through the plexiglass and whispered into a cutout circles for communication and she said I want to tell you what I want I want purpose I want my life to matter the guard had whisked me away because bed checks were about to start he had taken me to an electronically bolted door that opened up into a long cavernous windowless hallway with fluorescent lighting that rung up above and I walked in silence to a bulletproof window where I received my keys my wallet and my phone I walked in silence to my car and I sat there completely gobsmacked at the simplistic yet profound understanding that these women had freedom and purpose it's what we all want that day was so emotional and if I'm honest with you it was scary they told me I couldn't wear high heels because a shoe could fly off and someone could shank me with it hand to heaven that really happened and so I got into my car and I drove away and I said I will never go back to prison fast forward a few years later I find myself working for a global anti human trafficking organization called a21 so Global office with 13 offices in 12 different countries and I had the unique honor and privilege of being the global communications officer while some people like Liam Neeson like to bust down brothel doors and rescue women out of sex slavery they're referred to as freedom fighters I wear high heels and fake eyelashes and believe in the power of words I was gonna be a freedom writer right I was gonna sit safe and sane and secure at a desk here in California that was until I received an email from a co-worker a co-worker was in a field office and Thessaloniki Greece and she explained to me that she believed that there was a woman who had been trafficked a VOT a victim of trafficking but unfortunately no one can communicate with her she only spoke Spanish she went on to communicate to me that my coworker informed the lawyer and the jail that I was flying into town to do a global training and I would gladly be the translator to which I said hold up homegirl listen I'm latina and yes I am Brown but the Spanish I learned was watching soap operas called novellas with my Puerto Rican grandmother okay to speak about the illegal ramifications of entry into the European Union without proper documentation are you kidding me to which I replied back I I can't do this so what she replied back you are our only option to which I replied back well then I'm your best option I hopped on the plane that day and I was already scheduled to be there to do a global training but when I landed in Thessaloniki I was picked up by our lawyer and taken over to a jail I was met outside by a guard standing completely straight i me up and down as I walked towards him he stood behind a chain-link fence complete with barbed wire at the top and he speaks to me in broken English she says are you the translator to which I say si yo soy complete with the thumb and everything because nothing says professional like a thumbs up guys I was so nervous I was trying to remember all the Spanish phrases I possibly could in order to exercise some foreign language muscle memory I'll never forget the scene of entering into this jail and being escorted to the second floor of the detention center as I walked up I still remember it was mint colored walls and mint colored stairs but as I ascended to the second level I entered in a haze of thick cigarette smoke there was prison guards smoking talking back and forth to each other as they kept their eye on a row after row after row of cells one guard came over to me and escorted me to a particular cell and in this particular cell concrete floors concrete walls concrete ceilings and thick steel impenetrable bars keeping the free from the unfree I stared at these women there was 13 14 15 women laying sandwich like sardines laying in a state of comatose on a dirty mat covering themselves with a burlap blanket I remember thinking to myself what is going on I don't know what had a greater assault on my senses the fact that it smelled like urine and fecal matter from the cell next door or the fact that these women lay listless and lifeless watching a 12 inch television monitor screen positioned outside of their cell of reruns of Dancing with the Stars I remember thinking what is going on a guard motion to a girl she had caramel color skin like mine and deep chocolate brown eyes like mine she stood to her feet and she came forward and the moment that I said hola maimie bianca nosotros get em o sell you that her eyes widened and she bursts out a you the man are you the mid-water father help me help me please in that moment I was taken back to the phrase and the wording of that death row inmate years before it was their call and cry for freedom and ultimately for our pain to have a purpose but this is what I do know that this cry of help me isn't simply for the incarcerated for there others in our society in our community in our schools in our streets that are crying out they have built imprisonments around themselves strongholds holding them down whether that's debt fear affirmation addiction drugs alcohol porn we are building and we are incarcerating our soul and without even realizing it our soul cries out from deep within a you the man are you the man porfavor so the question that I asked today and the idea that I proffer is will you speak freedom over the incarcerated when we speak life when we speak to the shred of good within it awakens something deep within our soul when we look at someone and say you have potential you have purpose you are not done something changes this is the story of my friend Daphne I met Daphne at a prison in Lubbock Texas and her view and us talking changed my understanding of when freedom begins this is Daphne and this is Daphne story of freedom when I first started coming to jail I was questioning what's going on with my life all I wanted to do at that time was get out of jail I was mad at my life I was mad at God I didn't understand how this was it like after everything this was it this is my life when you're incarcerated you don't think that anybody cares or anybody is there or anybody is gonna just love you where you're at you think that you're judged and you're beneath and you're dirty and you're not good enough and you're rejecting you know you think all these things and you could just tell from the look in someone's eyes that when they love you and that I'm enough and I'm beautiful and you're redeemable when I came in here into jail I didn't love myself and nice ladies that came to volunteer and teach classes were sweet enough to love on me until I figured out that I was loved freedom begins the moment we believe that we can be set free if you are free and if you are walking in purpose will you give keys to those who are begging for help whether you believe they deserve it or not one of my favorite authors says we have been set free to live a free life but how not all of us are gonna be called in to anti trafficking measures not all of us are gonna bust into prisons but all of us have the power and potential to speak life over someone the question is not whether you are the most articulate whether you're the most educated whether you're the tallest whether you are the skinniest whether you most affluent mothers popular whether you're most pretty the question is whether or not you are the most willing the most willing to go to the debase of society the most willing to go to the dredges the most willing to go to the overlooked and the under-resourced and tell them they are worth it tell them that they have potential tell them and believe it that if they are not dead then they are not done this was spoken over Daphne and it changed her life what I believe is that when we speak to people in our life every single day our words have power to set them free when I looked at that woman as she in herself for the very last night she told me she wanted her life to matter and I promised her that it would because it did as it's been said when you know the truth it's the truth that will set you free thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 27,760

Rating: 4.9445982 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Criminal justice, Faith, Freedom, Prison, Purpose, Women, Women's Rights

Id: 19-eeaWuf9U

Length: 14min 39sec (879 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 06 2018