[Applause]
something there is that doesn’t love a
wall that sends the frozen ground swell
under it and spills the upper boulders
in the Sun and makes gaps even to can
pass abreast those are the first lines
of Robert Frost poem mending wall’ which
is about how nature doesn’t seem to like
walls because it’s always breaking them
down with frozen ground swells and the
like and how people are always building
those walls back up again I’m not sure
how I feel about walls there are really
such simple things made of just plaster
and drywall but on HGTV everyone is
always talking about how many rooms a
house has or if there’s an open floor
plan but when you get down to it all
they’re really talking about is walls or
the lack of walls
I know walls are important to me I live
in a family of five with not one but two
older brothers and if we didn’t have
walls let’s just say we definitely have
some problems but I suppose everything
that becomes complex began as something
simple and one way to examine walls is
to examine them from all sides
there’s Trump’s wall designed to
physically keep illegal immigrants out
of the United States right now in the
United States if you didn’t know there
are people called dreamers and they were
born in America to illegal immigrants
although for now they’re inside the
walls of America there are imaginary
walls that threaten and exclude them
every day with banishment but on the
other hand you can be inside walls that
enclose you for better or worse in the
United States we incarcerate seven
hundred and twenty-four people per every
100,000 people within walls more than
any other country in the world and while
African Americans constitute 30% of our
population they represent 60% of the
entire number of people imprisoned you
know when saying this this reminded me
of reading about Tom Robinson into
mockingbirds this year in English class
if you didn’t know or haven’t read the
book Tom Robinson is an african-american
man unjustly convicted of rape and when
he tries to scale the prison wall in an
act of desperation he is shot 17 times
but it’s cognitive walls that are really
on my mind
cognitive walls are within people you
build a wall in your head so you only
hear information that supports what you
already believe and because you won’t go
beyond this wall you learn nothing new
since February 14th 2018 and the tragedy
in parkland Florida I’ve been worried
about these cognitive walls because our
population as a whole needs to break
down the cognitive walls that keep them
from listening to alternate views on gun
control before disastrous events like
this one can happen again I mean on one
hand if most politicians remain behind
the cognitive wall where they cannot
speak up for gun control because they do
not want to upset the NRA and its
financial support more shootings like
these will keep happening but on the
other hand the Second Amendment speaks
to our right as Americans to keep and
bear arms and this amendment must be
considered seriously have you ever
realized how many criminals and people
wanting to do harm are actually fought
off by guns but do teenagers really need
to be using assault rifles a gun
invented for world war ii but i have
faith that the students at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas high school are further
breaking down the cognitive walls of
many to listen to arguments on the other
side about assault rifles but isn’t it
awful that something this bad had to
happen for us to further realize that
bigger actions need to be taken because
of this shooting caused by years and
years of politicians refusing to
acknowledge that actions need to be
taken after the Columbine High School
mask
the Sandy Hook elementary school
shooting and the Las Vegas massacre many
of which wear the same gun was used my
school has been forced to build walls
higher and higher each a greater effort
to keep us safe so now instead of
hanging out with my friends before
school in the morning I’m told to go
into a classroom which has walls to
protect us however if we had broken down
these cognitive Wallace earlier schools
wouldn’t be thought of as dangerous
places if we had broken down these
cognitive walls earlier actual human
lives could have been saved something
there is that doesn’t love a wall as
Robert Frost reminds us even now
humankind built walls and nature’s only
wish is to knock those walls down please
please take down the cognitive walls in
your mind so that I and my friends do
not have to live in fear behind so many
physical walls walls that as I close my
TED talk I will now walk outside of in
the hopes of a day where I know how I’d
no longer have to live in fear but not
at all because I’m choosing a side of
the wall in this argument but because
there’s something in me that doesn’t love a wall thank you
something there is that doesn’t love a
wall that sends the frozen ground swell
under it and spills the upper boulders
in the Sun and makes gaps even to can
pass abreast those are the first lines
of Robert Frost poem mending wall’ which
is about how nature doesn’t seem to like
walls because it’s always breaking them
down with frozen ground swells and the
like and how people are always building
those walls back up again I’m not sure
how I feel about walls there are really
such simple things made of just plaster
and drywall but on HGTV everyone is
always talking about how many rooms a
house has or if there’s an open floor
plan but when you get down to it all
they’re really talking about is walls or
the lack of walls
I know walls are important to me I live
in a family of five with not one but two
older brothers and if we didn’t have
walls let’s just say we definitely have
some problems but I suppose everything
that becomes complex began as something
simple and one way to examine walls is
to examine them from all sides
there’s Trump’s wall designed to
physically keep illegal immigrants out
of the United States right now in the
United States if you didn’t know there
are people called dreamers and they were
born in America to illegal immigrants
although for now they’re inside the
walls of America there are imaginary
walls that threaten and exclude them
every day with banishment but on the
other hand you can be inside walls that
enclose you for better or worse in the
United States we incarcerate seven
hundred and twenty-four people per every
100,000 people within walls more than
any other country in the world and while
African Americans constitute 30% of our
population they represent 60% of the
entire number of people imprisoned you
know when saying this this reminded me
of reading about Tom Robinson into
mockingbirds this year in English class
if you didn’t know or haven’t read the
book Tom Robinson is an african-american
man unjustly convicted of rape and when
he tries to scale the prison wall in an
act of desperation he is shot 17 times
but it’s cognitive walls that are really
on my mind
cognitive walls are within people you
build a wall in your head so you only
hear information that supports what you
already believe and because you won’t go
beyond this wall you learn nothing new
since February 14th 2018 and the tragedy
in parkland Florida I’ve been worried
about these cognitive walls because our
population as a whole needs to break
down the cognitive walls that keep them
from listening to alternate views on gun
control before disastrous events like
this one can happen again I mean on one
hand if most politicians remain behind
the cognitive wall where they cannot
speak up for gun control because they do
not want to upset the NRA and its
financial support more shootings like
these will keep happening but on the
other hand the Second Amendment speaks
to our right as Americans to keep and
bear arms and this amendment must be
considered seriously have you ever
realized how many criminals and people
wanting to do harm are actually fought
off by guns but do teenagers really need
to be using assault rifles a gun
invented for world war ii but i have
faith that the students at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas high school are further
breaking down the cognitive walls of
many to listen to arguments on the other
side about assault rifles but isn’t it
awful that something this bad had to
happen for us to further realize that
bigger actions need to be taken because
of this shooting caused by years and
years of politicians refusing to
acknowledge that actions need to be
taken after the Columbine High School
mask
the Sandy Hook elementary school
shooting and the Las Vegas massacre many
of which wear the same gun was used my
school has been forced to build walls
higher and higher each a greater effort
to keep us safe so now instead of
hanging out with my friends before
school in the morning I’m told to go
into a classroom which has walls to
protect us however if we had broken down
these cognitive Wallace earlier schools
wouldn’t be thought of as dangerous
places if we had broken down these
cognitive walls earlier actual human
lives could have been saved something
there is that doesn’t love a wall as
Robert Frost reminds us even now
humankind built walls and nature’s only
wish is to knock those walls down please
please take down the cognitive walls in
your mind so that I and my friends do
not have to live in fear behind so many
physical walls walls that as I close my
TED talk I will now walk outside of in
the hopes of a day where I know how I’d
no longer have to live in fear but not
at all because I’m choosing a side of
the wall in this argument but because
there’s something in me that doesn’t love a wall thank you
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