[Applause]
to this
the next et little bend and I realized
how my simple choice to wear a piece of
cloth on my head would change my life
forever immediately my classmates
started judging me those that used to be
my friends started distancing themselves
from me until the point came where one
girl to try and bully me said hey I know
why you wear that it’s because you have
rainbow hair so I looked at her not
knowing what to say and said I know it’s
judging others based on their appearance
is not just dumb it can be damaging when
we judge people by how they look we lose
out on the opportunity to learn from or
about them and society loses out on
those opportunities to collaborate
instead our biases become our barriers
our words become our walls and instead
of being kind to one another we start
categorizing each other into different
kinds the problem is the first time we
see someone sometimes we think enough we
know enough to pass a judgement and I’ll
give you an example a couple of months
ago I was visiting my grandmother in
Toronto and we were trying to find
parking on Yonge Street so as I’m going
into this one spot she holds my hand and
she says saamana don’t park here so I
looked at her and said nonny why not and
she said well do you see that man in the
hoodie he looks like a thief looks like
a thief because he’s wearing a hoodie I
see people in the audience squirming
right now wearing their hoodies what if
in fact he was a traffic engineer trying
to fix the traffic lights or Drake
trying to find his cellphone on the
I don’t know because I decided to park
two blocks away a common question that I
get once people figure out that I can
speak English is they ask they asked me
where are you from like where are you
really from Syria India or from that
show on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
well I think I would make a fantastic
Ninja Turtle the first two are incorrect
because in fact I was born and raised
right here in Vancouver but before I get
a chance to answer that question before
I get a chance to answer that question
some have already answered it for me
some have already judged me by what’s on
my head without bothering to find out
what’s in it today our society is
obsessed with appearance and we only
need to look at our smartphones to know
that this is true the founders of
Facebook tinder Instagram snapchat have
made billions off of this idea that
nobody here likes to look bad nobody
here not you not me likes to look bad or
be perceived negatively or incorrectly
based only upon our appearance and
that’s why we try so hard to fit in just
look at Facebook when we post our new
profile picture don’t we think hmmm how
many likes am I going to get how many
comments am I going to get and perhaps
if you’re single your favorite app might
be tinder or if you’re single and Muslim
they’ve come up with a new app called
but whatever your type we swipe left and
right judge left and right faster than
we order our morning cup of coffee so
instead of judging people by their
appearance why can’t we judge them by
their actions by the stories they share
by the company they keep by their
contributions to society when I was in
grade seven
my school was fundraising for a village
in Haiti but we weren’t quite raising
enough so my teacher came to me and said
saamana I need you to give an
announcement tomorrow’s parent-teacher
assembly asking them to donate more so
being the total Keener that I was I said
okay I’ll do it
and I got up the next morning in my
uniform and of course my hijab and stood
there with a piece of paper in my hand
and I saw that the parents were looking
at me up and down like where did this
Muslim girl come from but I wasn’t fazed
and I stood there just as everyone
thought I was gonna read out an ordinary
announcement I reached into my bag and
put on these silver Snoop Dog shades and
a blood-red
diamond studded jacket that would have
made Elton John a bit jealous and I
stood there and all of my gaudy gear and
it doesn’t matter where you’re from or
where you think you’re gonna be we’re
all just one when you go skiing deep
Haiti or Canada were all the same don’t
call me by my label just call me by my
but I swear the parents looked at me the
most confused look I have ever seen they
were probably thinking – that really
happen did Kanye West go east and have a
kid with Isis but surprisingly as soon
as I stopped rapping they started
clapping and pretty soon we ended up
raising more money than we ever expected
so what you might think the moral of the
story is is that it pays to be different
and sure it paid for those five minutes
but I think the only reason it did was
because I had completely obliterated
their pre-judgement because we would
have thought that a hijab’ girl could
rap right and it shows equating
experience with appearance is so
arbitrary just look at history did
Einstein voluminous hair have anything
to do with his theory on relativity did
Gandhi’s loincloth help him conquer
colonialism and did the hippy mustache
of Hitler make him any less of a bad
person look at me I am a visibly Muslim
woman doing a talk on stereotyping this
is a stereotype
because if you think about it there are
so many Muslims who don’t look like me
and there are so many people who look
[Applause]
why distinguish which one is which
instead we need to start judging our
judgments I stumbled across a way to do
this to judge our pre judgments on a
cold rainy Vancouver afternoon my
friends and I were driving near the
Downtown Eastside and we stopped at an
intersection at Pigeon Park we looked
out of the window and saw a group of
homeless men huddled shivering in the
cold their cardboard boxes damp ties
flailing in the wind and there was one
particular man who was sitting inside of
his cardboard box and we looked at him
his dark skin a scraggly beard and a
deep scar down his right cheek the light
turned green and we went off but that
image still stayed in my mind so I
turned to my friends and said listen we
have to go back we have to help these
hungry people on the streets and so
that’s what we did we went back to our
dorms and made the best college styled
egg salad sandwiches went back out onto
the streets and started giving them out
and as we’re giving them out I feel a
tap on my shoulder I turn around and
it’s none other than that same homeless
man that I had seen before he looked at
me and I looked at him his blue eyes and
my brown two people who had been put
into boxes their entire lives
me in a racial box and him in a
cardboard one I turned to him and
quickly handed him to egg salad
sandwiches and with his hands trembling
he said thank you thank you for my first
meal in three days he continued I’m so
sorry about the kinds of things that
people might say about those who look
like you I want you to know that none of
it is true please continue to be who you
are please continue to be kind I didn’t
know what to say
so I just looked at him and said sir
what’s your name he said wow it’s been a
long time since anyone has asked me my
name my name is Jacob
so I said Jacob thank you I hope you
have a wonderful day and he left that
day Jacob taught me a very important
lesson on how to judge your judgement
and that is to continue to be kind that
this small simple act of kindness is the
bridge that connects judgments from afar
and connection from up close because if
I had judged Jacob that day if I had
called him dirty diseased downtrodden
unemployed or if he had looked at me as
something that he may have seen on the
news the neither one of us would have
understood each other in a light that
the world normally never sees and it
shows this idea of us and them is so
outdated
it blocks way back it belongs way back
in the day not back in the day when we
had land mines further back when we were
nomadic hunters on savannas when the
idea of us was a fellow human and them
was a hungry lion trying to eat us but
since our emerge from savannas to cities
and then from cities to Siri we’ve
evolved but our thinking hasn’t we’re
still stuck in this primitive idea that
those who look like us are more superior
to those that don’t this whole idea of
judgment more importantly is a first
step it’s a first step into quicksand
because pretty soon we’ve gone from
judgment to prejudice and from
prejudiced is discrimination and then
we’ve gone from a world of immigration
bans and hashtags to targeted shootings
and ethnic cleansing because all it
takes is for one person to judge all it
takes is for one
basement to look at a child in a hoodie
and call him a thief all it takes is for
one president to get up on TV and call
Mexicans rapists all it takes is for one
employer to look at me and say sorry you
don’t look like the right fit
so let’s avoid this judgment and let’s
avoid this first step and there are two
things that you can do today to help
avoid taking this step of prejudgment
and the first is yes to look kindly upon
everyone that you meet that it doesn’t
matter what people look like or where
they’re really from what matters at the
end of the day is how they can help us
grow and sometimes it’s the people that
don’t look like us that teach us the
most that you may be surprised that that
neighbor of yours with curly dreadlocks
and cheetah print leggings is actually a
neurosurgeon who saves lives every day
and when you open your hearts to
kindness and make that the center of
your thoughts on judgement then and only
then can we move beyond a world of
labels and towards a world of love the
second thing is to look at the upside
the positive rather than the downside of
those who look different than us
sometimes we’re really quick to feel
like we have enough information to pass
a judgement just like my grandma but
it’s important that we look at people
for who they are
that the greatest leaders of our worlds
than Mandela’s and the Malolos were all
given awards and given honor based on
their merit and not on their melanin and
so if we do these three things if we
judge our judgment if we look kindly
upon everyone and if we look at the
upside rather than the downside of those
who look different than us then we will
discover that beyond our hoodies and
hijabs we are all just raw red flesh
that the white girl and the black boy
the Muslim father and the Jewish mother
the
in the sand and the grandmother on a
respirator all have one thing in common
when you cut us we bleed and when you
tickle us we smile and if you ask us do
we look the same
we will probably say no no we don’t we
don’t look the same and that is
precisely what makes our species so
beautiful so next time you jump to
judgment remember it doesn’t matter
where you’re from or where you think
you’re gonna be we’re all just one when
you go skin deep
thank you [Applause]