Rashad Robinson : How to channel your presence and energy into ending injustice

Rashad Robinson·TED2020

How to channel your presence and energy into ending injustice

Summary

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed by police. After that, the demo of black lives matter is not stopping now, even during COVID. It's because, I didn't know, on March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor and on February 23, 2020, Ahmad Arbery had been shot by police.  They had been black...

Rashad Robinson is the president of Color Of Change, a civil rights organization that advocates for racial justice for the black community. His story is complicated, though, I think that this is around the world and this is important. It's called "Normalizing Injustice".  When you hear about one black man, you think that all black men do or about one police does something, you think that all police do it. It just leads to small things being bigger. The structures that harm them should be fixed. The base is that a racist criminal justice system requires a racist media culture to survive and a political inequality follows economic inequality. 

The story is excerpted from The path to ending systemic racism in the US.

The full discussion → The path to ending systemic racism in the US

Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff : The bill has come due for the US's history of racism

Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff·TED2020

The bill has come due for the US's history of racism

Summary

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed by police. After that, the demo of black lives matter is not stopping now, even during COVID. It's because, I didn't know, on March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor and on February 23, 2020, Ahmad Arbery had been shot by police.  They had been black...

Phillip Atiba Goff is the founder and CEO of the Center for Policing Equity and works with police departments across America. It's including in Minneapolis where George Floyd was killed. He tells us that the way making progress is that we put forward public safety that empowers particularly vulnerable communities. In the first place, the police is not necessary for public safety and its budgets should invest vulnerable communities where black residents have unpaid debts. There is no justice for George Floyd, though, it's not enough to only reform the police system.  Public safety including investing, being able to go to hospitals and clinics, having insurance, etc. have to change for communities.

The story is excerpted from The path to ending systemic racism in the US.　The full discussion → The path to ending systemic racism in the US

Marcelo Mena :The economic benefits of climate action

Marcelo Mena·TED2020

The economic benefits of climate action

Summary

This was a pretty good story because people try to create a better country hard after COVID-19. 

The speaker, the former environment minister of Chile, answered that people started looking around through this pandemic. They might pollute their air by barbecues, buying a lot of clothes, or eating a lot. Requiring blowing up an economy must mean to destroy the environment.

Chile recently committed to net-zero emissions by 2050. Net-zero refers to balancing the amount of emitted greenhouse gases with the equivalent emissions that are either offset or sequestered.

Chile has large coal-fired power plants being situated where people live and with higher mortality rates. Many trees were cut, thus if we change our actions, we will lose more people than COVID.

The former environment minister of Chile tells us that there is the responsibility as a fiduciary. It’s important that people in the country think about that, their consensus is continuing, for climate action,

there are economic benefitｓ. There are transitional and physical risks to change energies, but we should have an action.

Words in this story

fi·du·ci·ar·y / trustee, one who holds property or power for the benefit of another (Law)

Katherine Eban : A dose of reality about generic drugs

Katherine Eban·TEDMED 2020

A dose of reality about generic drugs

Summary

The speaker is an investigative journalist. I thought that this was an old story when she started to talk. It’s because it took about 10 years to explore imitated generics medicines after she received a phone call in 2008. It has said about the side effects of generics, releases, and no effects of generic medicines.

Generics medicines have no brand name and not protected by a registered trademark thus it’s affordable, it can help many people, and it’s based on the FDA’s reassurance.

However, it has been light regulation but the data was falsified. By inspecting plants in India and China, much fraud was found. Failing testing drugs were sold also, it should get thrown out.

The speaker suggests that rigorous oversight, unannounced inspections, and systematic testing of drugs are more necessary. And then patients can demand more quality and safety as well.

Words in this story

swindle/ cheating, fraud, deceptio

John Lewis and Bryan Stevenson : The fight for civil rights and freedom

John Lewis and Bryan Stevenson·TED Legacy Project

The fight civil rights and freedom

Summary

The interview was recorded in November 2019. The speaker, John Robert Lewis, was an American politician, a civil-rights leader, and not only worked for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee but also spent his life fighting for freedom and justice for everyone. 

He died this July. I've just seen the news that his body covered with the American flag crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge before reading the article. The bridge is known as Bloody Sunday. 

In the past, there was violence to fight civil rights and freedom, however, Dr. King had taught him to love while enduring some of the brutalities. It requires the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence that are to respect the dignity and the worth of every human being and never give up on anyone. The speaker's work must be redemption to tell the history. 

Two black men were told in this story. The fight is continuing. As a society, still, there is something that the country hasn’t embraced. They also said that they haven’t really wanted to acknowledge the legacy of slavery and the history of lynching and segregation. People want to skip over the apology part. This is the most shocking story for me as a Japanese, so...

We have to reject something with courage and respect when we face it that was wrong. It’s not resistance, not hatred, and not ignoring, but it's for our civil rights and freedom. We have to catch it with our own hands. It's not given. 

Farish Ahmad-Noor : Why is colonialism (still) romanticized?

Farish Ahmad-Noor·TEDxNTU

Why is colonialism (still) romanticized?

Summary

The speaker said that he encountered the limits of history, thus, he needed to engage with sociologists, anthropologists, political economists, above all, people in the arts and the media.

History is so important and going beyond history is more important.

We are all social beings and historical beings.

We carry history in us. For example, it’s in the language we use, in the fiction we write, in the movies we choose to watch and in the image that we conjure when we think of who and what we are.

We carry history with us, history carries us along, and we are determined by history. It has tough and serious parts, on the other hand, it has great and beautiful parts.

We are determined by history, though, we don’t need to be trapped by history and be victims of history.

While reading the story, l was thinking where the speaker was coming from. The title is why colonialism is still romanticized, l was wondering which country was colonized but is it romantic?

He comes from Southeast Asia and a historian.

Southeast Asia has many countries that were colonized by various countries and those countries were independent. However, being independent, creating own countries, without military power, governing is so hard, furthermore, people had many dreams that after independence, they must be happy soon, though, it’s difficult.

We are trying to do many things that don’t get better results immediately. It must create histories, we cannot see results, though, we live. It’s not related to which country we live in.

I think that the story has to be read by not only Asian countries but also all countries. Studying something means to encounter the limits and then overcoming it and it’s repeating.

Panti Bliss : The necessity of normalizing queer love

Panti Bliss·TEDxDublin 

The necessity of normalizing queer love

Summary

The speaker is an Irish activist 1) and a gay 2) who tells us that she is not young. 3)

For a long time, she thought that she was jealous of straight people because they could be casually holding hands in public that is a small thing, though gay couples could never do that. LGBT people have to put up to be safe or not to be an object of ridicule or scorn.

It’s expected for LGBT to put up with those things, it’s thought that same-sex marriage can’t possibly be a “marriage”,  it's sneeringly described things as gay always,and it’s not normalized anything,

She said that despite appearances, she is just as ordinary, just as unremarkable, and just as human as you are.

An Irish, gay and elderly people are human as we are. Irrespective of race, sex, and age, we are ordinary people.

Words in this story

ho·mo·pho·bic /adj/ having or showing a dislike of or prejudice against homosexual people

straight people / a heterosexual person.

put up with / be patient with, tolerate

Be fed up with / be tired of, have enough of, be at wits end with