A black man goes undercover

 I took a cell phone and accidentally made myself famous. (Laughter) I was just talkingabout the things that I cared about, but with the click of a button and an incendiary viral video I propelled myself into overnight stardom. When I say overnight, I mean I literally woke upthe next morning with so many notifications on my phone, I thought I sleptthrough a national tragedy. (Laughter) It was the craziest thing, guys, but when it came to my influenceand my exposure, I literally took a quantum leap.

 So I made more videos and the subject matter of my videos was often the most divisive subjectin American life, but it was the way that I articulated race that made me somewhatof a digital lightning rod. See, being a survivor myselfof police brutality and having lost a childhood friend, Alonzo Ashley, at the hands of the police, I had a little somethingto say about the topic. You see, this was at the heightof the Black Lives Matter furor and people seemed to be turningto me to articulate their viewpoints, and honestly, it was sort of overwhelming. You see, the internethas this interesting quality. 

In one way, it totallybrought the world together, and I remember being a kid and all of this utopian propagandawas being dumped on us about how the World Wide Web was going to span the reachesof people across the globe. But as it turns out, people are people. (Laughter) And this magical superhighway also took the demons of our nature and gave them Ferraris. (Laughter) You see, technology, y'all,is a lot like money. It just brings out what's alreadyinside you and amplifies it. And so I soon became familiarwith the phenomenon of the internet troll. 

These guys seem to livebeneath the bridges of said superhighway -- (Laughter) And they also missed the memo aboutthe enlightenment of the internet age. I remember being called highly colorful racial slurs by those who usethe anonymity of the internet as a Klan hood. And some of themwere pretty creative, actually, but others were pretty wounding, especially navigatingthe post-traumatic world of a police brutality survivor in the height of Black Lives Matter, with all of these peoplebeing killed on my timeline. To these trolls, I wasn't a human.

 I was an idea, an object, a caricature. Did I mention that this race stuffcan be kind of divisive? You see, I'm an innately curious person and as I drew my sword to engagein epic battles in the comment section -- (Laughter) I also began to notice that a few of my trollsactually had brains, which made me even more curiousand what to understand them even further. And although these supposed morons engaged in what appearedto be original thought, I said to myself, "Um, these guys are highly misinformed, at least according to my knowledge." Where are these guysgetting these arguments from?

 Like, was there some kindof alternative universe with alternative facts? (Laughter) (Applause) Was history and gravityoptional over there? I don't know. But I needed to know.Like, I wanted to know. And as it turns out, I had no ideaabout digital echo chambers. That same target marketing algorithm that feeds you moreof the products you like to buy also feeds you moreof the news that you like to hear. I had been living in an online universe that just reflectedmy worldview back to me. So my timeline was pretty liberal. I had no Breitbartor Infowars or Fox News. 

No, no, I was all MSNBCand The Daily Show, CNN and theGrio, right? Well, these trolls were hoppingthe dimensional doorway and I needed to figure out how. (Laughter) So what I decided to do was trick the Facebook algorithm into feeding me more newsthat I didn't necessarily agree with, and this worked fine for a while,but it wasn't enough, because my online footprint already established the patternsthat I like to hear. So with the anonymity of the internet, I went undercover. (Laughter) I set up this ghost profileand went crazy. 

Now, on a practical level,it was very simple, but on an emotional level,it was kind of daunting, especially with the racist vitriolthat I had experienced. But what I didn't realizeis that my trolls were inoculating me, thickening my skin, making me immune to viewpointsthat I didn't necessarily agree with, and so I didn't react to the same thingsas I would have several months prior. All right? So I pressed on. Noticing that this stuffalso worked on YouTube, I became Lucius25,white supremacist lurker -- (Laughter) And digitally I began to infiltratethe infamous alt-right movement.

 Now, my doppelgänger was Edgar Rice Burroughs'John Carter character -- (Laughter) a sci-fi hero who was oncea Confederate soldier. And to think, like, years ago,I would have needed acting training and, like, makeup and a fake ID. Now I could just lurk. And so I started with a little Infowars, went on into some American Renaissance, National Vanguard Alliance, and, you know, I startedcommenting on videos, talking bad about Al Sharptonand Black Lives Matter. I started bemoaning race baiterslike Eric Holder and Barack Obama and just mirroringthe antiblack sentiments that were thrown at me. 

And to be honest,it was kind of exhilarating. (Laughter) Like, I would literally spend daysclicking through my new racist profile -- (Laughter) Goofing off at work in Aryan land.It was something else. (Laughter) And so I then startedvisiting some of the pages of my former trolls, and a lot of these guyswere just regular Joes, a lot of outdoorsmen,hunters, computer nerds, some of them family guyswith videos of their families. I mean, for all I know, some of y'allcould be in this room right now. Right? (Laughter) But when I went undercover,I found a lovely plethora of characters, luminaries like Milo Yiannopoulos,Richard Spencer and David Duke. 

All of these guys werethought leaders in their own right, but over time, the alt-right movementended up using their information to fuel their momentum. And I'm going to tell you what elseled to the momentum of the alt-right: the left wing's wholesale demonizationof everything white and male. If you are a pale-skinned penis-haver,you're in league with Satan. (Laughter) Now, would you believe, would you believe that some peoplefind that offensive? And -- (Laughter) And so, I mean, listen, the fact is that millennialsget a lifetime of diet brand history. 

I mean, America seems to be hellbenton filling its textbooks with CliffsNotes versionsof its dark past. This severely, severely decontextualizesrace and the anger associated with it, and that is fertile groundfor alt-facts to grow. Add in the wild landscape of the internet and it's easy to sellrebranded "Mein Kampf" ideas to a generation who has beenfailed by public schools. A lot of these ideas, easily debunked. Alt-facts have that quality. However, one theme kept screaming at methrough the subtext of those arguments, and that was, why should I be hatedfor who I cannot help but be? 

Now, as a black man in America,that resonated with me. I have spent so much time defending myselfagainst attempts to demonize me and make me apologize for who I am, trying to portray meas something that I'm not, some kind of thug or gangster,a menace to society. Unexpected compassion. Wow. Now, listen, the historical source of the demonizationof black males and white males is highly different, and where you fall on this argument, sadly, tends to be an accident of birth. Now, you're probably surprisedby this perspective, and so was I. 

Never in a billion years did I thinkthat I could have some kind of compassion for people who hated my guts. Now, mind you, not enough compassionlike I want to be friends. I don't have infinite olive branchesto extend to people who, like, would not wantto see me on this planet. Right? But just enough compassion to understandhow they got to where they are. And to be honest, there were a couple of fair points. 

One of them was how liberalshave this wide acceptance for everybody except for those with honestly heldconservative viewpoints. (Laughter) Heaven forbid you love God,this country and mean it. Right? And another thing that they talked aboutwas this fear that they had of something that they labeledas "white genocide," that diversity would be a forcethat would wipe them out. Now listen, I know what it is to fear for the fate of your people. 

Between crack, AIDS, gang violence, mass incarceration,gentrification, police shootings, black people have morethan enough reasons to stay up at night. But if nature is into diversityand you are not, you're going to lose that fight, buddy. (Laughter) (Applause) You see, nature doesn't careabout your race. That's man-made. Nature just cares about healthy organisms, and your precious ethnic featuresare expendable to that aim. So the moment that you let goof that racist identity and relatch onto humanity, all your problems go away. (Applause) I'm going to tell youwhat race ain't about to die out: the human race.

 Join the party. The water's great. Until the water gets too hot,but that's another TED Talk. (Laughter) The point is that to getto this point of understanding, you have to let go of that fear and embrace your curiosity, and sadly, too many peoplewill not take that journey to see the world from the other side. And, I mean, let's be honest, that doesn't just go for progressives, but also to the right wingand conservatives. You know, as fairas some of their points were, they were still trappedin their own echo chambers, recycling old, outdated points of view, never getting a diversity in perspective, not making them well-roundedin their worldview. So they're not hearingcertain anti-racist and political voices, voices like Tim Wise and Michelle Alexander, Dr. Joy DeGruy,Boyce Watkins, Tariq Nasheed. 

All of these voices have the answersto the questions that they want, but unfortunately they will not hear themdue to the power of these echo chambers. We have got to break outof these digital divides, because as our technology advances, the consequences of our tribalismbecome more dangerous. And this whole experiencetaught me something: our gadgets ain't going to save us. All these technological devices are only mastery of the universeout there, not the one in here. And so that's all IQ, not EQ. That's a dangerous imbalance. 

Where do you getthe emotional intelligence, the character development, the virtues of patience,forbearance, compassion, you know, the things that make surethat these devices, however advanced, become a blessing and not a curse? Seems to be me that humanity itselfneeds an upgrade. Now -- (Applause) That's a big task, understandably, but I don't believein any kind of unbeatable monster. There was no giant out therewithout perhaps a simple Achilles heel. And what if I told you that one of the best waysto actually overcome this is to have courageous conversations with difficult people, people who do not see the worldthe same way that you see the world? Oh yes, folks, conversations may beindeed the key to that upgrade, because remember, language was the first formof virtual reality. It is literally a symbolic representationof the physical world, and through this device,we change the physical world.

 Keep in mind, conversations stop violence, conversations start countries, they build bridges, and when the chips are down, conversations are the last toolsthat humans use before they pick up their guns. And I ain't talkingabout online safe conversations from the security of your laptop. No. I'm talking about in-your-faceconversations with real, breathing people. And for me, this lookslike running a community forum called Shop Talk Live. Now, in Shop Talk Live --somebody's been there, right? In Shop Talk Live, we have the conversationsthat change lives. We meet the communityright where they are, and we've done everythingfrom divert gang violence in real time to help find people jobs to mentoring homeless youth.

 And the reason why we needed to do this is because there was a severe lackof trust in the black community due to the violence of the crack era. And so we ended up takingagency into our own hands, solving our own problems, not waiting for anybody else. And the truth is, from the mayor to the felon, you're going to find themin that barber shop. And so what we did was justorganize what was already going on. And so what I started doingwas mining these alternative viewpoints from these alternative digital universes, dissecting them, breaking them downinto controversial talking points. 

Then, with my cell phone, I flipped the internet against itself and began to broadcastthese live conversations to my online followers. This made them want to leavethe safety of their laptops and meet us in personto have real conversations with real people in real life. And we did this. Thank you. (Applause) Sometimes I sit back,and I reflect on the paradox of me just trying to solve the problems, us trying to solve the problemsin our own communities -- we build bridgesto so many other communities, from the LGBTQ communityto the Arab immigrant community and even sat down with somebodywith a Confederate flag on their hat and talked about the thingsthat actually matter. 

It is time that we stop trying to hack our wayaround the human experience. There is no way out of each other. Stop trying to find one. (Applause) We have to understand something. Human beings all want the same things and we have to go througheach other to get these things. These courageous conversationsare the way that these bridges are built. It's time that we startseeing people as people and not simply the ideasthat we project onto them or react to. Human beings are not the barriers but the gatewaysto the very things that we want. 

This is a collectiveand conscious evolution. My journey began witha terribly popular cell phone video and a fallen friend. Your journey begins right about now. Join the renaissance in human connection. It is going to happen with or without you. My suggestion: pick a topic,and start a community dialogue in your neck of the woods. Meet folks back in real life. And I'm going to tell you, when you trick the algorithmof your existence, you will get some diversified experiences. It is time to grow, people. 

And when we do this, not if, it will be clearthat the key to this upgrade was always our inner world,not some device that we create, and the doorwaysto this experience is now, and will forever be, each other. Thank you. (Applause)