Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I believe representation matters because it's really

difficult to form a healthy self-image unless you can see

yourself reflected in popular culture.

I grew up in an era where it was rare to see Black people

on TV and in magazines.

The places where I saw Black people represented

were on the news, especially during the Vietnam War era,

where the majority of our soldiers being

sent into the theater of war were young Black men,

and, you know, on TV in less than elevated positions

in society.

Representation matters.

You know, Alex Haley used to say--

and I know people have said it before him and many after him--

history is written by the winners.

He who controls the narrative controls reality.

Right?

So the notion that there are voices

that are a part of the conversation that are absent

is exactly why representation matters.

This experiment that we are currently engaged in

was designed, I believe, to include all of us,

that we would not get the full value of being human

unless and until we were able to value everyone's contribution.

And we haven't gotten there yet.

There have been flashes.

And so representation has to be at the forefront

of our experience of storytelling and communicating

because we aren't meant to leave anybody out

of the conversation.

When I was growing up, it was almost unheard of

to see people dealing with physical challenges

as a part of a narrative storytelling

in popular culture.

You just didn't see, necessarily,

people in wheelchairs.

I think Raymond Burr as "Ironside"

was the first time in my lifetime

that I can remember a person in a wheelchair,

not that the wheelchair defined the character.

But what I was experiencing was a person

who lived their life from a wheelchair

and how it was possible to live a completely fulfilling

existence from a chair.

Those kinds of examples in our storytelling

normalize the vast breadth of human experience

that can tend to be put aside, that

can tend to be marginalized by the virtue of the infrequency

with which we encounter them.

Being someone who represented the sightless and the visually

challenged on "Star Trek"--

it gave so many people-- you have no idea how many times

a week I hear from someone that they felt seen and represented,

that Geordi was important for them because he spoke for them.

He was a proxy for them.

They could see themselves in him.

Absent representations of ourselves,

it is hard as a human being to develop a healthy self-image.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

By not limiting our individual voices,

we are contributing to the great tapestry that

is storytelling on this planet at this particular time

in our history.

By not allowing our voices to be silenced

by ensuring that we speak up and speak out,

we are staking a claim to a piece of the conversation.

Right?

The idea that no one can silence my voice

that I don't give permission to in the silencing.

I have to cooperate with your ability

to silence me today in order for my voice to be unheard.

Now, that's important to me because, personally, I

feel like I have value.

And I feel like I have something to say.

What's more, I feel like you have value

and that you have something to say.

And she has value and she has something to say.

I believe we all are a piece of this puzzle.

And the only way we're going to put the puzzle together

in total is by welcoming all the disparate voices to the table.

There is more commonality in humanity

than there is difference.

We have the same hopes.

We have the same dreams.

We want safety, security for our families.

We thrive on clean air, clean water, and enough nourishing

food to eat.

That doesn't change based on where you were born

or what color your skin is or the gender

you were assigned at birth.

We have this amazing opportunity as human beings to choose--

to choose our own path, to choose our direction,

to choose our experience.

And that's God-given.

You can't take that away from a person and claim to be human.

We all have a contribution to make.

And it's incumbent upon us as a society to make room

for all of those voices.

And further, if you don't find that there's room,

if you don't feel like there's room for your voice,

then dammit, get your elbows going

and forge a place for yourself.

Get active.

Get loud.

Get in there.

And express yourself anyway.

Because the act of self-expression

is an affirmation that I am here,

that I am alive, that I am vital, and that I matter.

Using one's voice is a radical act of humanity.

Because the first thing that one does in trying to dominate

and trying to enslave is to take away

a person's voice, their agency, and speaking for themselves.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

For me, it's important to expose ourselves

to stories that don't emanate from our experience

so that we can learn and grow.

I recently had a conversation with a friend.

And I've known this person for a long, long time.

And I love this person.

Our families have shared experiences together.

There is a history that we have.

However, I have been very disturbed

with some of the things that this person had

been posting on social media.

And I sort of--

I held it in.

I held it in.

I held it in.

And in this new effort of mine to really walk what I talk,

right, I decided that it was important for me to safely

and as successfully as I was able to engage

in a conversation.

And so I wrote in the comments, we need to talk.

And this person wrote back very quickly, any time.

And so I took some deep breaths.

And I dialed the number, remembering, of course,

that I wanted to communicate.

I wanted to be effective.

I didn't necessarily need to be right.

But what I wanted to know was, what

was it about the idea of Black Lives Matter that seemed

to disturb this person so much?

And I was able to, in a very open and nonjudgmental way,

explain to her that when I said Black Lives Matter,

it comes from a place of never having

mattered before in this culture, in this country.

And that the idea that when I say Black Lives Matter--

your response is all lives matter or blue lives

matter is yet another way to ignore my humanity.

What I was able to take away from the conversation

was her point of view.

And her point of view was that even though there

is such a thing as systemic racism in America,

she didn't have the experience that I

have had of what it means, practically speaking,

to be othered in this society.

It's not an experience she was familiar with.

So she had no real frame of reference.

Intellectually, she could understand.

But on an emotional level?

On an emotional level, she didn't have the ability

to get to where I was coming from until I was

able to break it down for her.

Conversely, I truly understand that her life of privilege,

as I interpret it, was not her fault.

And she said something really interesting to me.

She said that I feel like I'm being blamed for something

as a white person.

And my response to her was, I'm not trying

to blame you for anything.

I simply want you to understand where I'm coming from.

Right?

And it's the simple act of being civil to one another

that really makes the difference.

Right?

I know that these necessary conversations are hard.

I know it's going to take a lot of patience and courage

and listening to one another.

And that really requires an ability to put aside one's ego.

Again, do I want to be right?

Or do I want to be effective?

I have decided in my life that I want to stand for what's true.

I want to engage in ideas, feelings,

actions that are true.

And that's the North Star that I use when storytelling.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Stories like "Roots" can help further the conversation

about justice and equality in this country

by the very nature of the truth that they bring to the table.

Right?

Again, I don't believe that America

has done a very good job of telling ourselves

the true nature of our story.

We lie to ourselves an awful lot.

The story of Black people in America--

we didn't come here because we wanted to.

We didn't immigrate willfully.

We were brought here in chains.

And then we became an inconvenience

to white normative culture.

And they didn't know what to do with us.

And so they continued to oppress us

because it made them feel better about their lot in life.

It made them feel better about their existence

to have someone that they could rely upon that

was beneath their stature.

That's on you.

That's not on me.

Yeah, we're all human.

We're all fallible.

We're all capable of inflicting tremendous pain on one another.

And it is never appropriate to ignore it

when we do engage in that kind of behavior

because we learn nothing from it if we don't acknowledge

the truth.

We have not acknowledged the truth

in America of the systemic, the generational damage that

was done.

Why?

Because it reminds us that we haven't always

been at our best.

It reminds us that there has been an imbalance

and unfairness that has been enacted in our lives that

is inappropriate.

It is, in fact, shameful.

It's shame-inducing.

But America has not indulged itself in the shame necessary.

We haven't acknowledged it.

We'd rather ignore it in the hopes that it'll go away.

But it won't.

I think that the job of a storyteller

is that of a truth-teller.

You got to bring the truth.

You have to be willing to stand in your truth and express it.

Because if you don't, it just gives people

permission to forget, to ignore, to obfuscate,

to change the narrative.

I think, in part, I feel like a part

of my journey in this lifetime is

to remind us of the truth of the Black experience in America.

Part of my journey is to remind us

of the power and potential of our imaginations

as they are expressed in science fiction and thoughts,

contemplations on the future.

I feel like part of my destiny is

to be here and stand for literacy, for knowledge,

for learning, especially where children

are concerned because they are the most vulnerable among us.

And they are what this is all about--

those who take over when our time is done.

So that now, at this point in my life, this point in my journey,

I feel like I have valuable stories to share.

[LAUGHING]

And when I do this, when I do my job,

I really feel the rightness of who I am and why I'm here.

And there's no better feeling than that--

not for me, anyway--

to feel the rightness of who I am and what I'm doing.

[MUSIC PLAYING]