Translator: Kristina Radovic
Reviewer: Ivana Krivokuća The year was 1999. I was 13 years old. The location - a sleepover
with all of my best girl friends. The occasion - well, the new
Destiny's Child album "The Writings on the Wall"
had just come out, and we felt like listening to it
for an entire night on repeat was the only way to mark
such a glorious occasion. (Laughter) Since that faithful day in 1999, my love for Beyoncé
has only gotten stronger, and I know I'm not the only one. (Applause) Yes, shout out to the Beehive. If you don't know who -
(Laughter) if you don't know who Destiny's Child is, this was the girl group
that Beyoncé was a part of before she started her solo career. Since then, Beyoncé has grown
to be one of the best artists of our time. With over a 100 million records sold,
she's won 20 Grammys; she's become the most nominated
woman in Grammy history; she has sold out world tours; she has more statistics
and has broken more records than I'm going to use
for my entire time today. But Beyoncé is a woman
at the top of her game, and America has loved her. On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé
released a new single "Formation," complete with a music video and the next day
a Superbowl halftime performance. Most of us are familiar with Beyoncé. We've heard her music,
we've seen her perform, either live or on TV. But this was a different Beyoncé. We saw her paying homage
to the Black Panters at the Superbowl. We saw her standing against
police brutality in her "Formation" video. And this is one of the first times
where we didn't see Beyoncé singing something like
"Bootylicious" or "Single Ladies." And a lot of people didn't like it. The critics came pouring in
and I realized something. America's reaction to Beyoncé
highlighted a much more subtle, more nuanced issue we have in our country. See, we like Beyoncé when she's singing
"Bootylicious" or "Single Ladies" because she's sassy, she's sexual, and she is a stereotype
of what we want black women to be. But when she shows
a less monolithic character of herself , and ultimately of black women,
we didn't like that as much. Now we're in a space
and time in our country where racial tensions are high, people are protesting,
people are polarized, and what we see everyday
on our social media feeds and on the news are people standing on extremes
of every side of this issue. But I want to argue that a lot
of America's problem with race comes from a smaller, more invisible form. Sometimes, I think,
when we talk about race, a lot of us can think about slavery
or foremost civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks. It feels like a reality
of the distant past that has little to do with how we live
our everyday lives today. I want to disagree, and here's why. Terrence Roberts - he's one of the Little Rock Nine;
they were the first nine students to integrate the Little Rock
school system - well, he talks about a principle
that social psychologist Malcom Gladwell highlights in his book "Outliers," except he frames around race. In the book "Outliers," Gladwell talks about something
called the "10,000 hour rule." The "10,000 hour rule" is this: if you spend 10,000 hours
intentionally practicing something, you become an expert on that thing. But, here's the catch:
once you become an expert in something, about 70% of that action
gets relegated to your subconscious. You've put in the hours,
you've done it enough, and it becomes sort of automatic. For example, if you were to ask
gold medal gymnast Simone Biles how she jumps on a three inch beam,
does a no-handed cartwheel, four flips off the back
and lands squarely on her feet, how she does it, she'll only be able to give you
about 30% of that answer. Why? She's put in her 10,000 hours,
she's become an expert, and when she gets on the beam,
her body knows what to do. It becomes automatic. Okay, so what does any of this
have to do with race? Well, I want to give you some dates. The first is 1619. 1619. This represents the year that the first Africans
are brought to the US as slaves. The second date is 1954. 1954 is the year of
Brown vs Board of Education. This is the case that was meant
to disaggregate our country. Now, for the sake of this example,
let's assume that in 1954 our country integrated
and everything was great. We know that that's not the truth,
but just track with me. (Laughter) So, 1619 to 1954. This represents a span of 335 years. Now, for these 335 years,
our country intentionally practiced the dehumanization of, the abuse of, the exploitation of and the segregation from black people in this country. For those 335 years, black people were owned as property, were refused citizenship, were treated as less than, were bought and sold as commodity, used for entertainment and disregarded. If you're wondering
how that time breaks down, those 335 years represent 294 10,000 hour units. So, our country became an expert 294 times on the dehumanization of, the oppression of, the abuse of and segregation from black people in this country. Remember, once you become
an expert in something, 70% of that action gets
relegated to your subconscious. So, if we look around
and we ask ourselves, "Why are racial tensions still so high? Why are so many parts
of our country still so segregated? What is going on?" If we trust our automatic responses, we'll only be able to give you
about 30% of that answer. Assuming that in 1954,
when legally some things changed, we've only even been trying
to do something different for 62 years. Okay, back to Beyoncé. (Laughter) What does any of this
have to do with Beyoncé? Well, Beyoncé is a black women. A black women in America. A country that has become an expert
on expecting certain things from people who look like Beyoncé. They have been our entertainers,
they have been our commodities, they've been our sassy friends,
our eye-rollers, our comedic relief, and we don't even realize
how deeply comfortable we are with the roles
that we have created for one another until someone like Beyoncé
shows us another side, and we don't like it. Our automatic responses tell us, "No, she should be singing
'Bootylicious' or 'Single Ladies'; we like that Beyoncé. That's the role she should fill." You may be asking yourself,
"So then what do we do? How can we move beyond this?" Well, a renowned poet
and author Maya Angelou has a beautiful quote that says this: "First, recognize that I'm a black women. And then, forget that I'm a black women." We will not be able
to move past race in this country until we are willing to acknowledge
what race has meant and continues to mean for how we interact with one another, what we expect from one another,
how we see one another. Please do not fall into the lie
that we shouldn't see color. Instead, face head on the fact
that this country's expertise in segregation, oppression and racism has created subconscious realities
of what we want each other to do, where we think we should be, how we think we should talk,
live, where we should go, and the only way to move past that
is to move through it. We can no longer rely
on our automatic responses to tell us how to treat one another. Instead, we need to start
intentionally practicing something else and understand that we are working
against a 335 year long deficit. So for going to move past it,
it's going to have to be intentional. We have to start becoming
experts in something different. To put this all in Beyoncé terms: you can have no longer
have our "Bootylicious" if you're not willing to
understand our "Formation." Thank you. (Applause)
