Recognizing Privilege: Power to All People | Michael Yates | TEDxTexasStateUniversity

Summary

In this powerful speech, the speaker challenges the preconceived notions of identity and power by sharing his own story of growing up as a black male in the inner city. He introduces the concept of 'culture of power' to redefine privilege and marginalization, using personal anecdotes and the transformative journey of his students. The speaker encourages embracing one's identity and leveraging it to bridge gaps between diverse groups, ultimately promoting unity and understanding.

Takeaways

• 🔍 The speaker challenges the preconceived negative narrative often associated with young black males from inner cities, emphasizing the importance of looking deeper into one's background and achievements.
• 🏆 Despite facing adversities, the speaker highlights the accomplishments of his family, such as his mother being a Teacher of the Year and his father attending college on a basketball scholarship, which contributed to his own educational success.
• 🎓 Education is portrayed as a powerful tool that can transcend socio-economic backgrounds, as evidenced by the speaker's journey from attending public schools to graduating from Texas State University and pursuing a master's degree.
• 💪 The concept of 'culture of power' is introduced, which refers to the set of values and beliefs that unfairly privilege certain groups, and the speaker uses this concept to empower his students and transform his classroom.
• 🤝 The speaker advocates for understanding and acknowledging one's own identities and privileges as a means to bridge gaps between different groups in society, promoting unity and inclusivity.
• 👦 The story of Chris, a student who aspired to go to jail, illustrates the transformative power of education and the 'culture of power' in changing self-perception and aspirations.
• 👧 The example of Sheridan, a white girl attending a Title One school, demonstrates how understanding and transforming one's relationship with privilege can lead to positive change and leadership among peers.
• 🎲 The analogy of an unknown card game is used to convey the experience of marginalization and the importance of understanding and sharing the 'rules of the game' to level the playing field.
• 🎒 Peggy McIntosh's 'invisible backpack' metaphor is employed to encourage individuals to identify and embrace the positive aspects of their identity as a source of power and self-affirmation.
• 🤝 The speaker calls for a collective effort to share the message of empowerment and understanding, likening it to being 'unplugged from the matrix' and spreading awareness to 'unplug' others.
• 🌐 The final takeaway emphasizes the potential for unity and overcoming gaps in society when individuals recognize and claim power over their identities, leading to a more empowered and understanding community.

Q & A

What is the main message the speaker is trying to convey about his personal background?

The speaker is emphasizing that appearances can be deceiving and that one's background can hold more potential and privilege than what is initially apparent. Despite his challenging upbringing, he was afforded opportunities due to his mother's profession and education, and he himself became a successful, educated individual.

What is the concept of 'culture of power'?

The 'culture of power' is a set of values, beliefs, and behaviors that unfairly privilege certain groups based on aspects of their identity. It was originally coined to inform instructional practice and help teachers better educate students of color, but the speaker adapts it to empower and transform his classroom and students.

How does the speaker define 'privilege' in the context of the speech?

In the context of the speech, 'privilege' refers to the unearned advantages and benefits that certain individuals have in society due to their identity, such as race, socio-economic status, or education, which can influence their life outcomes.

What is the significance of the 'invisible backpack' analogy used by the speaker?

The 'invisible backpack' is an analogy used to represent the positive aspects of one's identity that contribute to their sense of power and privilege. The speaker encourages individuals to fill this backpack with these attributes and carry it proudly as a symbol of their strengths.

What was Chris's initial dream and how did the speaker's teachings influence him?

Chris initially dreamed of going to jail, but after the speaker introduced the concept of 'culture of power' to him, Chris's mindset changed. He eventually went to college and credited the 'culture of power' as the most important lesson he learned, which helped him see himself differently.

How does the speaker describe the process of closing gaps between diverse groups of people?

The speaker describes closing gaps as a process of understanding and acknowledging power relationships, transforming one's relationship with privilege, and using that understanding to uplift others. This involves both those with privilege and those without it claiming power over their identities and working towards unity.

What role does the speaker believe education played in his life?

The speaker believes that education played a crucial role in his life by providing him with opportunities that he might not have had otherwise. His mother's status as a teacher allowed him access to quality education, and he himself became a teacher to inspire and empower students.

What is the purpose of the card game analogy used by the speaker?

The card game analogy is used to illustrate the experience of marginalization and the importance of understanding the unspoken and unwritten rules of societal games. It highlights the challenges faced by those who are not privy to these rules and the need for those with privilege to use it to help others.

How does the speaker suggest we should view negative identities?

The speaker suggests that we should view negative identities in a different light, identifying them as aspects of our power. By reframing these identities and placing them in the 'invisible backpack,' we can claim power over all aspects of our identities, including those traditionally seen as negative.

What is the speaker's call to action at the end of the speech?

The speaker's call to action is to share the message of the 'culture of power' widely, likening it to being unplugged from the matrix. He encourages the audience to spread this message to unplug more people and to close the gaps between diverse groups by understanding and acknowledging each other's identities and privileges.

Outlines

00:00

🔍 Redefining Identity and Power

The speaker begins by painting a potentially negative picture of himself based on stereotypes, but then challenges this view by sharing his educational and familial background, which includes being raised by a highly accomplished mother and having a father with a college education. He emphasizes the importance of looking beyond surface-level descriptions to understand the true potential and power that individuals possess. The speaker introduces the concept of the 'culture of power,' which refers to the set of values and beliefs that unfairly privilege certain groups. He aims to empower his audience to view their identities differently and to challenge societal marginalization.

05:01

📚 The Power of Education and Mindset

In this paragraph, the speaker recounts his experience with a student named Chris, who initially aspired to go to jail but was later inspired to attend college. The speaker uses this story to illustrate the transformative power of education and the importance of changing one's mindset. He discusses the concept of the 'culture of power' in different educational settings, emphasizing the need for understanding and acknowledging power dynamics to bring about unity. The speaker also highlights the role of privilege and how it can be used positively to uplift others, or how individuals can claim power over their own identities to overcome marginalization.

10:02

🎒 Claiming Power Through Identity

The speaker invites the audience to participate in a thought experiment, comparing the feeling of marginalization to not knowing the rules of a game. He then encourages both those with privilege and those who feel marginalized to claim power over their identities. Using Peggy McIntosh's 'invisible backpack' metaphor, he suggests filling this backpack with positive aspects of one's identity to carry as a symbol of power. The speaker concludes by likening the process to social media sharing, emphasizing the importance of spreading the message of empowerment and unity to bridge gaps between diverse groups.

Keywords

💡Privilege

Privilege refers to the unearned advantages that individuals or groups possess based on societal structures that favor them. In the video, the speaker discusses the concept of privilege in relation to race and socio-economic status, emphasizing that recognizing and understanding one's own privilege is the first step towards closing the gap between different societal groups.

💡Marginalization

Marginalization is the process by which individuals or groups are pushed to the periphery of society, often due to their race, socio-economic status, or other factors. The script uses the metaphor of a card game to illustrate the experience of marginalization, where those unaware of the rules are at a disadvantage and likely to lose.

💡Power

Power, in the context of the video, is the ability to influence or control one's circumstances or the behavior of others. The speaker encourages the audience to claim power over their identities and to recognize the positive aspects of their lives as a form of empowerment.

💡Identity

Identity encompasses the characteristics and qualities that make up who a person is, including race, gender, socio-economic background, and more. The video emphasizes the importance of understanding and embracing one's identity as a means to claim power and to challenge societal norms that may marginalize certain groups.

💡Culture of Power

The term 'culture of power' was coined to describe a set of values, beliefs, and behaviors that unfairly privilege certain groups based on aspects of their identity. In the video, the speaker adapts this concept to empower students and to transform their classrooms, emphasizing the need to understand and challenge these power dynamics.

💡Education

Education is presented as a powerful tool and a form of privilege in the video. The speaker's mother's status as a teacher and her own educational achievements are highlighted to show how education can provide opportunities and a pathway to overcome socio-economic challenges.

💡Transformation

Transformation in the video refers to the process of changing one's mindset and perspective about oneself and one's place in society. The speaker uses the concept of the 'culture of power' to transform the way students, including Chris, see themselves and their potential.

💡Invisible Backpack

The 'invisible backpack' is a metaphor introduced by Peggy McIntosh to represent the unacknowledged assets that individuals carry with them, often related to their privilege. In the video, the speaker uses this concept to encourage the audience to identify and claim the positive aspects of their identity as a form of empowerment.

💡Unity

Unity is the state of being united or together, often in harmony. The video promotes the idea that understanding and acknowledging differences in privilege can lead to unity, as it fosters empathy and a collective effort to uplift one another.

💡Oprah Winfrey Show

The 'Oprah Winfrey Show' is a cultural reference used in the video to convey the idea of empowerment and giving. The speaker compares the message of the video to the experience of the show, where everyone leaves with something valuable, in this case, the concept of claiming power over one's identity.

💡Claiming Power

Claiming power is the act of acknowledging and utilizing one's strengths, abilities, and positive aspects of one's identity. The video emphasizes that by claiming power over their identities, individuals can overcome societal challenges and achieve a sense of self-empowerment.

Highlights

The speaker challenges the initial negative portrayal of his life by the media, emphasizing the power of deeper understanding.

The speaker's mother being a multiple-time Teacher of the Year and her educational achievements provided him with access to quality education.

Despite his father's incarceration, his educational background and the speaker's own college attendance challenge stereotypes.

The speaker's personal achievements, including graduating from Texas State University and pursuing a master's degree, demonstrate overcoming adversity.

The introduction of the 'culture of power' concept, which addresses the unfair privileging of certain groups based on identity aspects.

The speaker's adaptation of the 'culture of power' to empower students and transform his classroom environment.

The story of Chris, a student whose mindset was transformed through the 'culture of power', ultimately achieving his dream of attending college.

The importance of understanding power dynamics in education and society to bridge gaps between diverse groups.

The speaker's experience teaching the 'culture of power' to different audiences, emphasizing adaptability in approach.

The concept of claiming power over one's own identities as a means to overcome marginalization.

The use of Peggy McIntosh's 'invisible backpack' analogy to help individuals recognize and claim their own power.

The speaker's call to action for participants to share the message of empowerment, likening it to unplugging from the matrix.

The idea that understanding one's privilege and using it to uplift others is a powerful tool for social change.

The story of Sheridan, a student who transformed her relationship with privilege and led the way in the classroom.

The experiment of the card game as a metaphor for experiencing marginalization and the importance of understanding unspoken rules.

The final message of empowerment, urging participants to see themselves and others with newfound power and unity.

Transcripts

so if I were arrested here's what they

might say about me on the news 26 year

old black male 5 foot 11 dashingly

handsome raised in the inner city by a

single mother father's been in prison

since 1992 on a number of charges not

much hope for this dude he did it that

description doesn't look too promising

as a matter of fact I couldn't use it to

claim great power or privilege in

American society unless we look deeper

you see what you might not know from

those few words is that my mother is a

multiple time Teacher of the Year in

Houston Independent School District her

status as a teacher alone afforded me

the ability to go to any public school I

wanted in the city so naturally I

achieved the best education in the city

of Houston furthermore my mother is a

college graduate and has her master's

degree in curriculum instruction and my

father while he has been incarcerated

for the majority of my life attended

college at the University of Wisconsin

on a full basketball scholarship my

parents status as college attendees

alone means that I am far more likely to

have gone to college and it just so

happens that I did I graduated from this

fine institution of higher learning

Texas State University which is the best

university in the world yeah we can clap

for that

I'm also finishing my masters in

curriculum and instruction right now I

have a beautiful amazing hot wife and I

have three beautiful amazing children

I'm a teacher myself I get the chance to

inspire and empower students every

single day I am black and I love that

and last I am dashingly handsome

I mean how you think I got this gig you

know you see what you just heard was not

a presentation of new information it was

the other side of the rap sheet

it was the same information just viewed

under a different lens you see through

this different lens I've been able to

claim power for myself by viewing my own

identities in a completely different way

it's no secret that in the United States

of America that people of color are

consistently marginalized it's safe to

say that economically socially

culturally and in terms of education we

do not hold power or privilege in this

country but in the words of my man my

best friend Barack Obama yes we can I

want to introduce you to a concept

called the culture of power the culture

of power represents the set of values

beliefs and ways of acting that unfairly

and unevenly privilege certain groups of

people based on aspects with their

identity the term culture of power was

coined in 1988 by the current executive

director for education and innovation at

Florida International University Lisa

Delfin dumped its original intention

with the culture of power was to inform

instructional practice to show teachers

how to teach students of color so I

adapted her message for my own purposes

so that I could empower and transform my

classroom while at the same time

bringing them together with other

students so I hope today to empower you

and help you transform your identity and

in the process bring this entire room

together guys we're gonna kind of

operate today like The Oprah Winfrey

Show everybody today is going home with

something and you don't have to check

under your seats to get it either let me

tell you about Chris Chris is a cool kid

with cool hair and cool clothes and he's

got every pair of Jordan sneakers known

to man I swear he jokes that Michael

Jordan one day is gonna invite him to

his house as a guest of honor cuz he's

bought so many Jordan sneakers and the

crazy thing is he's probably right he's

got a lot of Jay's I met Chris as he

slowly strolled into my summer school

government classroom one year he sits

down and

tells me that his greatest dream in life

is to go to jail all summer I pushed

hard with Chris trying to transform his

mindset about himself to tell him that

no you are not just a poor Mexican kid

from Fort Worth you can change the world

and so that summer I rolled out my

culture of power of presentation and

experiment on this classroom hoping that

it would change Chris's life and it did

about halfway through the summer I was

met at my summer school classroom by

Chris and his mom and she had that real

concerned mom look on her face know when

you failed the test you would home you

know when tell your mom but you did

anyway

or when you came home too late from

being out with your friends that

concerned mom look so I knew it wasn't

good before I could even open the door

to the classroom she started talking

wasting no time in no words she told me

that I was wasting my time trying to

convince her son that he could go to

college and he would not go to college

that he was going to play his part and

that did not involve going to college

but I still pushed I was convinced that

Chris would prove his mother wrong and

then he would change to plan it a year

ago I got a phone call from Chris and he

made that phone call from the middle of

the Bryan Brown University campus yo he

made it

and he told me that the culture of power

was the single most important thing that

he had ever learned about in school

because he finally knew how to see

himself differently and he made me

promise on that phone that no matter

what group of students or people I stood

in front of I would share this message

with them and so you guys are not my

students but I'm gonna keep that promise

to Chris today I'm gonna teach you how

to see yourself differently say I've had

the fortune of teaching this lesson in

front of two very different audiences

the first was mostly students of color

from Italian public school and the title

one designation if you don't know means

that many of them are low-income then I

adapted this to a mostly white private

school in the heart of Austin Texas

where students paid twenty thousand

dollars a year for tuition you see the

only difference in teaching the culture

of power to these two different groups

of people is the angle of the approach

you see each approach helps one audience

see its opposite and understand them

better a great and respected teacher of

mine once told me that once we stop

pretending to be colorblind and we start

really trying to understand one another

we can finally be the human race thus

understanding equals unity and unity is

about closing the gaps between diverse

groups of people which means that

understanding is a tool that we can use

to close the gaps between groups of

people so here's how that works for the

title one student of color from a public

school closing the gaps looks like

telling them yes power relationships

exist in school and what you guys call

the real world

and know those power relationships often

do not advantage people of color but

that doesn't mean that you're doomed it

doesn't mean that you're down and out

you can claim power for yourself over

your own identities which ultimately

teaches you what it's like to live with

privilege in America humanizing those

who do live with privilege or white

privilege as we can call it which in the

end brings us together because now we

understand what it's like to be the same

for the white affluent private school

kid closing the gaps for them

looks like transforming their

relationship with their own privilege

research pointed out power relationships

in the workplace and in education to

tell

that those with privilege are the least

likely in the least willing to admit

that they even have it step 1

admit that you have privilege once that

happens you can start the process of

closing the gap between them and their

neighbor by understanding what it's like

to live without privilege once you do

this you'll start to achieve what we

call unity a perfect example of this is

a student I teach this year named

Sheridan

Sheridan is a white girl and she goes to

a title one public school of that title

in public school she goes through rich

private school where she pays twenty

thousand dollars a year for tuition but

she stands out in this crowd

pretty starkly you see Sheridan was born

in the Virgin Islands and she moved to

North Carolina and then to Florida and

now to Austin Texas because she grew up

in diverse communities and had her

relationship with her privilege

transformed on a daily she leads the way

in my classroom as I help my students

transform their relationship with their

privilege just watching one student who

gets it it's a great example of how we

can start to close gaps between you and

the person you're sitting next to so

let's do this thing let's do this

experiment right now everyone imagine

that you're playing a card game and you

don't know the rules to this card game

at the table where you're sitting

nobody's speaking but everybody knows

the game they're putting down cards

they're scoring points and every time

you try to ask for the rules you're

scolded and then there's some annoying

dude at the end of the table who writes

something that you can't read it on a

sticky note frustrated you make it

through the game and you get to the end

of the round and you lose chances are if

you played that game a thousand times

you would lose every single time you

didn't know the rules it would be easier

if somebody just told you what the

unspoken and unwritten rules of the game

were you may have just experienced your

first or your 100th time feeling what

marginalization feels like if this is

your

time with marginalization it's safe to

say that you live a privileged life and

that's not a bad thing I'm not going to

attack you

privilege is powerful when you use it to

uplift those around you if you are all

too familiar with what it's like to feel

marginalized then you don't have

privilege but you're not helpless either

we can teach you to claim power for

yourself and over your identities so

let's do that now I like to use in my

classroom and we're going to use today

Peggy McIntosh's invisible backpack

imagine that you're holding a backpack

and I want you to actually hold the

backpack remember I told you you're

going home with something today right

now the backpack is empty but we're

about to fill it out inside of this

invisible backpack you were going to

fill it with all of the positive aspects

of your identity if you can walk you

have power put that in your backpack if

you speak English in the United States

of America you have power put that in

your backpack

if you speak multiple languages you have

power put that in your backpack if you

have access to education you have power

put that in your backpack if you have

somebody at home who cares about you you

have power put that in your backpack

find all of the positive identities

about yourself even identify the ones

that you think are negative view them in

a different way put them in that

backpack you carry that backpack around

with you proudly everywhere you go

because that's not just who you are it's

the best of who you are you see once we

transform our mindsets about who we are

we can start accurately thinking about

our neighbor for who they are the last

step in this process is kind of like

Facebook and I realize my students tell

me that I'm getting old because I don't

use snapchat and Instagram but this

one's like Facebook so if you don't use

Facebook get one on Facebook you like

things you comment and you share them

that's what we've got to do with this

message the more people we reach with

this message the better a student of

mine liken this to being unplugged from

the matrix now we have to unplug some

more people

sitter this in this room right now there

are so many gaps and in those gaps

misunderstandings and preconceived

notions wait to separate us from one

another but they don't have to now

there's obviously a gap amongst the

privileged and the underprivileged

in terms of access there's a gap between

how those two groups relate to one

another there's a gap even within our

individual selves concerning the power

that we think we have and the power that

we actually have it's the understanding

that by claiming aspects of our identity

as powerful we can close those gaps

which means that when we face

underprivileged situations they're not

actually underprivileged because we are

powerful and powerful people overcome

now is the time that this room becomes

like the Oprah Winfrey Show see cuz you

got some power in the front and you got

some power in that striped shirt and in

the middle you got some power and in the

back you get some power and look under

your seats you got some power and all

the way in the hallway you got some

power everybody's going home with the

bow

put it in your backpack thank you

[Applause]