my background while I was growing up
growing up I can remember learning to do
a lot of things and I’m sure you all can
too like the first thing everyone
learned how to do was to walk and I’m
sure that wasn’t a simple task but for
me I had another hard task when I was
growing up and it was tying my shoe I
can remember that time my shoe was the
hardest thing to do it literally took me
forever to learn how to do and my
parents would bring home pictures and
books and try and show me videos of how
to tie my shoe but it was something that
I just could not get for the life of me
but when I finally learned how to do it
I realized that it wasn’t the books or
the pictures or the videos that taught
me how to tie my shoe it was watching my
parents that Tommy best
I watched them every day as they got
ready to go to work one foot in after
the other tying a shoelace into a neat
perfect bunny knot or at least that’s
what I like to call them but I can also
remember that that’s not the only thing
I learned from my parents which is
surprising for me as a teenager to say I
learned how they do things you could say
I watched how they pay bills keep a
steady job I watched how they interact
with people but more importantly I
watched how they reacted to people which
is something that might not seem like it
affects much but as you learn more about
my speech it will it has to do with
social mobility or upward mobility
upward mobility mobility refers to the
movement of one from a social or
economic level to another often by
changing income or status and it often
happens through generations for example
a farmer’s son becoming a farmer and his
son becoming a farmer and so on and so
on and so on so upward mobility has
recently become a trending topic in
America due to the fact that our society
isn’t too mobile now in reading I’ve
seen that a recent author named Sorokin
came up with the ideology ideology
ideology that no society is completely
open to movement and no society is
completely closed to movement meaning
that they all move a little
and America’s has done the same it’s
just actually declined so studies show
that 70% of Americans who are born poor
will remain poor and that 4% who move
into a different bracket 53% of them are
college graduates 50% of them are two
income families 35% of them are white
and 34% of them have never experienced
unemployment which has caused
researchers sustained the opportunity to
create and determine future generations
choices for success is often determined
by where their parents grew up and their
grants pool and their grandparents grew
up and so on and so on and so on now in
researching I’ve seen that there are
three aggravating factors and mobility
and websites say that their income
status and occupation but I beg to
differ I say those three factors are
education urbanization and imitation now
I’m gonna start with education now it’s
been proven that people who have a lower
income bracket typically move into
lower-income neighborhoods and typically
go to lower quality neighborhood schools
which can also be applied to the factor
of urbanization which causes close-knit
families who are typically living in a
society together to be of a in the
competitive job market or work force
meaning there is a need for a higher
level of education as a third is
imitation which can be related to my
first story talking about how to tie my
shoe just like I said I watched
everything that my parents did and I
watched how they did it and I tried to
perfect it and remember I told you I
watched how they reacted and I’m sure
that the rest of you and many other
people in our society watch how their
parents react and can apply it to their
everyday lives which can be scary when
we realize that there are 720 1000
current parents who are incarcerated and
there are 45 million families that are
currently living below the poverty line
and these numbers could increase as we
get older but just like every other TED
speaker I’m here to encourage you and
motivate you to do better in life and
I’d like to do that by giving you a
quote that I those from one of my
favorite poets whose name is Maya
Angelou she says there is no greater
and barring an untold story inside of
you today I’m here to let you know that
you each have the tools to write your
own story or even if you don’t while
you’re getting the tools don’t learn
someone else depending write the story
for you
you are able and you are capable to have
the ability to write your own story I’m
here to also say that past performances
don’t and won’t affect future results so
please remember this as you move forward
in life don’t be defined by another
person
don’t be defined by them another number
or statistic and more importantly
remember that imitation is merely a
sense of insecurity you have the ability
to do it yourself so please remember this as you move forward thank you