my parents met his teenagers their birth
working really hard to emancipate from
their families of origin they’re working
really hard to emancipate from those
families for two very different reasons
they found each other
probably in the backseat of a Chevy and
it’s 16 years old they got pregnant with
my brother he promptly dropped out of
high school got married moved in
together and took the kind of low-paying
jobs that high school dropouts get to
take ten months after my brother was
born I was born ten months after my
brother was born the joke in my family
growing up was that after my brother
came out my dad went right back in on
the eve of my fourth birthday my parents
separate and divorced all for my
grandparents sir Ashkenazi Jews making
obviously my parents Ashkenazi Jews
making me 96.2% Ashkenazi Jew I did one
of those DNA tests you can find on
both my parents remarried by the time I
was seven my father he remarried another
Ashkenazi Jew my mother she remarried an
Irish Catholic man this was problematic
for both of them for a couple different
reasons it was a problem for my mother
because she married a guy who wasn’t
Jewish they gonna remember this is the
1960s the early 1960s nobody broke that
chain back then you didn’t marry out of
your race or out of your religion
especially if you were a Hodgkin ozzie
jew there aren’t that many of us it was
a problem for my stepfather because he
was a Catholic man and he was marrying a
woman who was divorced they moved us to
a very white working-class neighborhood
in Northeast Philadelphia that’s where I
got my first taste of prejudice kids in
the neighborhood made fun of me for the
shape and the size of my nose they
teased me for being short they teased me
for having big ears I remember one time
the kids came home from Catholic school
and they formed a circle around me on
their uniforms and said let’s beat up
the Jew they they called me a rich Jew
and they called me a dirty Jew and I was
confused by all this sometimes they
called me a kike I didn’t know that word
I thought they were calling me a kite I
didn’t know why they’re calling me a
kite I didn’t feel like a kite the rich
Jew thing was really confusing that you
know these rich Jews I don’t know where
they are they’re not in my family all my
parents are high school dropouts I keep
looking for these rich Jews I hope they
show up sometime I want them to send me
their money I’ll do good things with
their money but there were no rich Jews
in my family and the dirty Jew thing was
also confusing to me I mean after I was
a 7 year old boy growing up in a city I
was probably pretty dirty but my am my
family was not and my house was not in
my house you didn’t you didn’t have
trash and trash cans in my house because
if somebody came over to your house and
he’s all trash in the trash can they
might think you were dirty so my house
never had trash in the trash cans in my
house if you were watching a TV show and
you had a drink and you got up to leave
for any reason anyone in your family
anyone in the family might have picked
up that glass and taking it wash it and
put it away my house was not dirty we
were not dirty Jews
my stepfather and mother then moved us
to a even more segregated neighborhood
outside of Philadelphia called Levittown
Pennsylvania in Levittown was
deliberately segregated in Levittown
they loved it was a bigot and he made a
neighborhood that was just for the black
folks and was called Bloomsdale and
that’s where the black folks lived and
the black folks didn’t go where the
white folks lived and the white folks
didn’t go where the black folks live
that’s just how it was busing was a big
thing when I was a kid and so it was the
early 1970s who people started getting
bused to achieve racial integration and
so I was bused past one school it was
five minutes from my house to another
school that was a half hour from my
house to achieve racial integration my
black friends often remind me that the
only time we ever started talking about
busing is when white people started to
get bussed I think this is true with a
lot of things in this country we don’t
start talking about this stuff until it
happens to white people when I was a
senior in high school I had an
opportunity to take black history or
American history it was interesting to
me that they gave us an option of these
two things as if they were different
three of my white friends and I we took
black history and I again felt like
other in that classroom as one of the
few white kids in a class of all black
people but I felt welcome there I felt
at home I felt accepted I felt nurtured
I felt loved you see I grew up in a
house where language was big words were
big I grew up in a house where curse
words weren’t the regular curse words
George Carlin used to say that there are
seven words you shouldn’t say on
television
curse words in my house weren’t words
like the f-word I grew up in a house
where the F word was used all the time I
thought the F word had to be used in
every sentence I didn’t know I mean I I
loved looking out and seeing college
students because y’all have you say the
F word walking across campuses in all
your songs I feel like I’m at home when
I’m with you you know in my house curse
words were words like the N word
couldn’t say the N word in my house you
couldn’t say the B word of the C word
for women there were curse words for
every group the Italians had curse words
we couldn’t say those words you couldn’t
say the words that we say for gays
lesbians and bisexuals that you still
here use you couldn’t say those words in
my
house you’d be in trouble there are
curse words for people with disabilities
that still get used regularly we use the
R word like it’s nothing
we still call people with disabilities
invalids listen to the word we’re
calling people invalid these words were
powerful in my house and I grew up
learning that these are not words you
use those other ones be careful where
you use them but you can use them here I
also learned that a bigot is a bigot as
a bigot and so that if you hear somebody
saying the n-word when there’s no black
folks around or the B word of the C word
when there’s no women around you can bet
damn sure mark that they’re saying dirty
Jew when you’re not around you can bet
damn sure they’re calling kike when
you’re not around because a bigot is a
bigot is a bigot and so I grew up about
prejudice in a very different way than
most people when I got to college I I
wanted to study this thing about
prejudice because it confused the hell
out of me it really did it confuse me I
didn’t understand it I passed for weight
so I would hear prejudice all the time
so I read this book it was written in
1954 by a guy named Gordon Allport when
I first got to college and he talks
about a couple different things in this
book but but three that I’ll highlight
here he talks about the idea that
prejudice is normal it’s natural it’s
it’s to be accepted we’re gonna have
prejudice we’re gonna have stereotypes
because we can’t meet every one of any
certain group so you’re gonna have
stereotypes and Prejudice based on
certain things hell if I’m the first Jew
you ever saw you might think this is
what Jews are like and you know what
we’re kind of like this this is how we
look he says that many stereotypes are
based in kernels of truth they don’t
come from nowhere they come from
somewhere and he says not only is
prejudice between groups but prejudice
is also within certain groups groups
also have prejudice within them not just
between them now I know about this
because as a Jew when people would ask
me if I was Jewish I would apologize and
I would say well yes almost as as if I
felt bad about it which I did I say yes
I am but but my stepfather is Catholic
and it wasn’t so much later in my life
that I realized that being Catholic was
just as bad as being Jewish I didn’t
know as a little kid I wouldn’t let you
look at me from the side when I was in
school I would want to sit in a way that
you would never see me from my profile I
wasn’t
ashamed and scared that you would see
how Jewish I was when I got to graduate
school I studied this guy named Carl
Rogers and Carl Roger says that the
distance between who you are and who you
dream yourself to be the greater the gap
those two things are the more
psychologically impaired you probably
are so I started to apply this to
prejudice and I thought well I can’t
apply this to me because I’m not
prejudiced I grew up in a house where
you couldn’t say the n-word I grew up in
Houston didn’t have prejudice I learned
from my mother that a bigot is a bigot
is a bigot and then I realized oh no
mark until you can look at your own
prejudice and you can look at the fact
that you have pressures and you can
start to examine that like an alcoholic
or an addict has a problem with
addiction before they can do anything
about it I have to realize that I am
prejudiced and so I’m gonna stand here
I’m gonna say something you might sound
a little crazy I am a racist sexist
ageist classist homophobic heterosexist
able biased and lookest person and with
all due respect so are you so are you
and until you can admit it until we can
admit as a society we will not move
anywhere because in our culture what we
do is we keep trying to convince each
other how cool we are we say stupid
things like I don’t see color or all one
race or that all lives matter it’s crazy
talk I can’t stand here pretend I don’t
see your age I can’t pretend I don’t see
that your skin is black in – white I
can’t pretend that I can’t pretend that
I’ll notice some of your eyes are shaped
differently than mine I can’t pretend
that I’ll see your hair sometimes purple
I can’t pretend that I don’t see these
things and I can’t pretend that it
doesn’t impact our relationship because
it does and until we can come to grips
with recognizing that the way we see
each other just based on very limited
information impacts who we are and how
we like to relate to each other we will
do nothing about this problems we’ve got
to stop pretending that we don’t have
prejudice it’s absurd so I started do
some research to find out who’s done
work on this prejudice thing and I was
surprised as heck to find out that the
group that did some of the earliest
research on prejudice was the US
military because then they in before
World War two the US military has
separate barracks they had enlisted men
showers that were for white folks and
enlisted men showers there for colored
folks and they had barracks that were
separate and showers that were separate
and so what they did is they they did
sensitivity training to try and reduce
prey
so they put these people in a room and
they did this sensitivity training
something like what I’m talking to you
about right now sort of and what they
found out is that prejudice did not go
down it didn’t go down all the
sensitivity training in the world didn’t
decrease prejudice so finally they said
the hell with this you know what let’s
just move these dudes in with each other
let’s just move them all in together
guess what happened to prejudice it went
down it went down dramatically and then
researchers have to say what the heck
happened here how did prejudice go down
what did we do and so they found that
when they met for specific conditions
when people share intimate beliefs in an
atmosphere of cooperation and they are
equal status sanctioned by some
Authority when we do those things
prejudice almost always goes down it
almost always goes down so how do we
keep prejudice in our head how does it
stay in our head what happens to us so
I’m driving on a very nice day from Los
Angeles to San Diego with my two
favorite bigots my my biological father
and my stepmother you know the other
kind of bigots that are bigoted in a way
that they don’t um
they don’t they pretend they’re not
bigoted but they are they use all those
words when no one’s around but they tell
you how cool they are when they are
around and so on this day we’re driving
from Los Angeles San Diego and as we’re
driving down there and there’s a car
driving erratically sure enough my
stepmother leans over to my father when
she sees this car driving erratically
and she says I knew it and I mean
forward I say what is it that you knew
and she said never mind I’m probably not
supposed to say this to you and I said
my guess is you’re probably not supposed
to say this to anyone
but tell me anyhow so she told me she
said okay I’ll tell you I knew would be
an oriental driver now my first thought
was oriental refers to food and rugs not
people but I don’t correct her just yet
I am capable of that
she says you wouldn’t know you live in
Colorado there are no Orientals in
Colorado you wouldn’t know so I say
let’s do a survey we got two hours to
sit in the car I’d rather do this and
talk to you let’s do a survey from Los
Angeles to San Diego on this given day
let’s see how many Asian folks or
Pacific Islanders are bad drivers and we
find out on this given day Asian and
Pacific Islanders do not have a monopoly
on driving poorly we know who the worst
drivers are in this country we know
where they are they’re 16 to 17 year old
boys so how does my stepmother hold in
her head that Asian and Pacific
Islanders are the worst driver she holds
in her head the same way I hold it in my
head the same way you hold in your head
she has a file a file in her head that
says bad Asian driver so when she sees a
bad driver that’s not Asian no file when
she sees a bad driver that is Asian boom
she files it so what’s in your file
what’s in your file I have a file I will
file for black folks I have a file for
brown folks I have a file for
Republicans I have a file for people
from Nebraska okay I have now I have a
file and so do you and you need to look
at your file so I started to examine
like has anybody in current events done
anything that’s reduced prejudice or
showing the presence to be reduced by
meeting those four conditions and sure
enough I get online and I find this guy
named Darryl Davis and Darryl Davis has
a african-american musician who plays in
a white band and he ends up playing at
Ku Klux Klan rallies he stands around
and he talks to people and they share
intimate beliefs and that mystery of
cooperation and they’re of equal status
and Prejudice Goes Down and Darrell
Davis gave me permission to use this
photographs and you can read about them
online if you like Darrell Davis will go
to these places and talk to these folks
and Wilson Shave wrote a book called
women’s reality and in her book she says
that prejudice is like air pollution
when you’re in the air that stinks
really really bad for a really long time
you stopped smelling this think of the
air it’s just
we the air smells and so the air as a
white male heterosexual temporarily
able-bodied man is almost always – over
my black friends tell me that a place
feels racist when my women friends say
it doesn’t feel safe to walk through the
parking garage or their workplace feels
like there’s a creeper working there I
go like this I don’t smell that because
it’s not my air and so my job is to
smell the air when it stinks especially
when it doesn’t stink for me white
people I’m talking to you white male
heterosexual temporarily able-bodied
folks I’m talking to you smell dear when
it stinks especially when it doesn’t
sink for you so let’s bring this to a
close here okay I’ve been to the some of
the richest places on the planet and the
poorest places on the planet we all want
the same stuff we want a safe place to
sleep at night we want water to drink
that’s good for us we want clean air to
breathe we want our other kids of the
world to have a chance of the life we
might want health care we might want an
education and what we want to do is we
want to connect so in the 60s when I had
a Volkswagen Beetle we would ride by
other Volkswagen Beetles and we would do
this ask your parents young folks and it
felt good I had a Harley Davidson for 25
years and I don’t know if I like driving
the Harley as much as I like getting the
wave from other Harley riders I go to
football games and I’m a football fan
and I see people raise their hands and
everything all crap I don’t want to do
the frequent wave and everybody starts
doing the wave and then I start doing
the wave and I look across the stadium I
see that even the team I’m fighting
against is doing the wave you see we
want to connect the desire to connect is
great something’s in the way of that so
maybe if we smell the air when it stinks
when it doesn’t speak stink for us maybe
if we can come to grips with looking at
what’s in our file maybe if we can start
to look at the words we use and how
maybe then maybe then the divide that
you see in the United States in the
world right now maybe then we’ll
actually find out that we can all come
together and and fix this stuff that’s
going on right now Thanks
[Applause] [Music]