[Music]
how crazy is this I hate Detroit with
the type of thing I used to say all the
time until people who have only been
here for two years and didn’t change
their address over yet because they’re
afraid of the car insurance started
looking at me and giving me dirty looks
and so I got tired of explaining myself
and I decided I think it’s about time
for me to distill this and so I did I
wrote a little essay on LinkedIn called
why I hate Detroit you see I’m a person
that grew up in one of the most
dangerous areas in the most dangerous
cities and the most dangerous place in
all of America
and it took me a second to really
explain and something weird happened
after I posted and thought that I
torched my entire career after hundreds
of thousands of views thousands of
shares I got a positive reaction for why
I hate Detroit I think what I did was I
captured the spirit of a series of
people in Detroit who hadn’t had a voice
that were trying to to voice their
frustrations it also had a silver thin
lining of the people that were new that
said yes this is bad but it could be
better you see growing up where I grew
up I always viewed the world this way
yes this might be bad but this can be
better but somebody has to be how can
you look at the world that way how can
you look at everything that’s bad and
still think that it could be better I
said it was some form of naive optimism
and so I named it bitter optimism the
idea that you could look at challenge
right dead in the eye you don’t need
Rose tinted glasses to change the world
the greatest minds have always been able
to take these challenges and solve
things that we once thought were
insurmountable and that’s the thing
that’s great about Detroit with so many
challenges we have more opportunities to
change the world than anywhere else but
here’s the thing in order to do that you
must deal with the community and if you
want to deal with the community you must
communicate you can’t work with the
community without communication and
that’s where we have our fundamental
breakdown you see what we do is we
forget that language literacy and
communication are a little different I
heard an anecdote one time that said if
you meet someone speaking broken English
that means they’re on their second or
third language your inability to
understand them is actually a product of
Jackie Chan is the second
highest-grossing actor in the world why
because he’s able to communicate and
though he makes fun of his English he
communicates with a broader larger
audience the end of any of us and so why
is it that when you hear Detroit stories
from native Detroiters you think your
degrees are broader than their lived
experiences why is it that when you go
and you look at things you’re trying to
figure out where you bring your bias to
how people communicate and why do you
plod or are you applauded for people
when they’re able to share their ideas
as if someone who was 60 years old who
ran a business ran a family would not be
able to effectively communicate you are
well spoken is not a compliment but this
is the power of storytelling it allows
us to be transported it allows us to be
in the body of a billionaire playboy
flying around finding intergalactic
threats and it allows you to be
transformed into a lion join a pride and
cry profusely when Mufasa died and if
you didn’t you’re a monster but what has
it done for Humanity it allowed us to
look back into the eyes of a war that we
tried to avoid I hurt our eyes from and
it allowed us to see what it’s like for
somebody who would give everything to
make a greater stand in what is their
body it gave us the broadest display of
sexual harassment and assault in the
history of America but we prescribed
some idea of a victory to this and it
allowed us to deal with the unbridled
joy of Chewbacca mam and share it with
thousands of our friends it’s given us
music that transverses all genres
attitudes and it’s given us stories that
have shaped culture and transcended time
but whenever I see this picture I always
wonder if they’re whispering how did all
these Italian guys get in the middle of
Jerusalem and how come no one brought
any sunblock that’s because the people
that captured this story well they did
it with the ten of their own bias of the
world that they thought should exist
they brought their identity and changed
the story of a culture that came before
them to make themselves feel comfortable
with what that world actually was we do
that we bring our biases to these
stories when we try to lift up
communities but we shouldn’t be bringing
solutions to problems that we don’t
understand it’s not our job to bring
savages fire it’s our job to find out
how locals create magic it’s our job to
find out how you do so much with so
little how did you change the sound of
American music without a distribution
pipeline that we thought you needed how
could you solve problems that we didn’t
even know existed
tribes families Native communities
and that’s why we must fight to preserve
and fight for our stories for everyone
young that’s watching us that’s why
there is power in the culture that you
bring it’s not time for you to speak and
act like anyone else it’s time for you
to be you how is it possible for a small
dance that happened outside of Atlanta
to become a dad that Hillary Clinton was
learning with Ellen DeGeneres because
your culture has value what we have to
begin to understand is that we need to
look at the world and it’s our job to
lift up stories that have changed us for
the better you would never go to China
to start a business or do community
development without a translator or
understanding the language so why would
you do that in the community and why
would you do that in Detroit truly we
must understand that when we allow
people to speak for their communities
and they stand up we are not giving them
a platform they are giving us a gift
they’re allowing us to peer into a world
that we could not possibly understand
and when we allow ourselves to be lifted
out of our body and placed into the
shoes of those that are not quite like
us hopefully we can see a world that we
thought we knew we could find answers to
problems that we didn’t know existed
and solutions the challenges that we
didn’t know we can find and hopefully we can be better for it thank you
how crazy is this I hate Detroit with
the type of thing I used to say all the
time until people who have only been
here for two years and didn’t change
their address over yet because they’re
afraid of the car insurance started
looking at me and giving me dirty looks
and so I got tired of explaining myself
and I decided I think it’s about time
for me to distill this and so I did I
wrote a little essay on LinkedIn called
why I hate Detroit you see I’m a person
that grew up in one of the most
dangerous areas in the most dangerous
cities and the most dangerous place in
all of America
and it took me a second to really
explain and something weird happened
after I posted and thought that I
torched my entire career after hundreds
of thousands of views thousands of
shares I got a positive reaction for why
I hate Detroit I think what I did was I
captured the spirit of a series of
people in Detroit who hadn’t had a voice
that were trying to to voice their
frustrations it also had a silver thin
lining of the people that were new that
said yes this is bad but it could be
better you see growing up where I grew
up I always viewed the world this way
yes this might be bad but this can be
better but somebody has to be how can
you look at the world that way how can
you look at everything that’s bad and
still think that it could be better I
said it was some form of naive optimism
and so I named it bitter optimism the
idea that you could look at challenge
right dead in the eye you don’t need
Rose tinted glasses to change the world
the greatest minds have always been able
to take these challenges and solve
things that we once thought were
insurmountable and that’s the thing
that’s great about Detroit with so many
challenges we have more opportunities to
change the world than anywhere else but
here’s the thing in order to do that you
must deal with the community and if you
want to deal with the community you must
communicate you can’t work with the
community without communication and
that’s where we have our fundamental
breakdown you see what we do is we
forget that language literacy and
communication are a little different I
heard an anecdote one time that said if
you meet someone speaking broken English
that means they’re on their second or
third language your inability to
understand them is actually a product of
Jackie Chan is the second
highest-grossing actor in the world why
because he’s able to communicate and
though he makes fun of his English he
communicates with a broader larger
audience the end of any of us and so why
is it that when you hear Detroit stories
from native Detroiters you think your
degrees are broader than their lived
experiences why is it that when you go
and you look at things you’re trying to
figure out where you bring your bias to
how people communicate and why do you
plod or are you applauded for people
when they’re able to share their ideas
as if someone who was 60 years old who
ran a business ran a family would not be
able to effectively communicate you are
well spoken is not a compliment but this
is the power of storytelling it allows
us to be transported it allows us to be
in the body of a billionaire playboy
flying around finding intergalactic
threats and it allows you to be
transformed into a lion join a pride and
cry profusely when Mufasa died and if
you didn’t you’re a monster but what has
it done for Humanity it allowed us to
look back into the eyes of a war that we
tried to avoid I hurt our eyes from and
it allowed us to see what it’s like for
somebody who would give everything to
make a greater stand in what is their
body it gave us the broadest display of
sexual harassment and assault in the
history of America but we prescribed
some idea of a victory to this and it
allowed us to deal with the unbridled
joy of Chewbacca mam and share it with
thousands of our friends it’s given us
music that transverses all genres
attitudes and it’s given us stories that
have shaped culture and transcended time
but whenever I see this picture I always
wonder if they’re whispering how did all
these Italian guys get in the middle of
Jerusalem and how come no one brought
any sunblock that’s because the people
that captured this story well they did
it with the ten of their own bias of the
world that they thought should exist
they brought their identity and changed
the story of a culture that came before
them to make themselves feel comfortable
with what that world actually was we do
that we bring our biases to these
stories when we try to lift up
communities but we shouldn’t be bringing
solutions to problems that we don’t
understand it’s not our job to bring
savages fire it’s our job to find out
how locals create magic it’s our job to
find out how you do so much with so
little how did you change the sound of
American music without a distribution
pipeline that we thought you needed how
could you solve problems that we didn’t
even know existed
tribes families Native communities
and that’s why we must fight to preserve
and fight for our stories for everyone
young that’s watching us that’s why
there is power in the culture that you
bring it’s not time for you to speak and
act like anyone else it’s time for you
to be you how is it possible for a small
dance that happened outside of Atlanta
to become a dad that Hillary Clinton was
learning with Ellen DeGeneres because
your culture has value what we have to
begin to understand is that we need to
look at the world and it’s our job to
lift up stories that have changed us for
the better you would never go to China
to start a business or do community
development without a translator or
understanding the language so why would
you do that in the community and why
would you do that in Detroit truly we
must understand that when we allow
people to speak for their communities
and they stand up we are not giving them
a platform they are giving us a gift
they’re allowing us to peer into a world
that we could not possibly understand
and when we allow ourselves to be lifted
out of our body and placed into the
shoes of those that are not quite like
us hopefully we can see a world that we
thought we knew we could find answers to
problems that we didn’t know existed
and solutions the challenges that we
didn’t know we can find and hopefully we can be better for it thank you
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