Nonprofits & Activism
Why we must confront the painful parts of US history | Hasan Kwame Jeffries
Visit to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more. To move forward in the United States, we must look back and confront the difficult history that has shaped widespread injustice. Revisiting a significant yet overlooked piece of the past, Hasan Kwame Jeffries emphasizes the need to weave historical…
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watercup123456
October 28, 2020 at 10:10 pm
This is just more anti-white, racist nonsense from radical leftists. Racism IS OVER, GET OVER IT >>> its been HUNDREDS of years, time to move on, and stop blaming other people for YOUR problems YOU CREATED black people!
Aidas Baranauskas
October 28, 2020 at 10:11 pm
this got little popularity. Is it just me or are most viewers either not american or don’t care much?
Tom Perkin
October 29, 2020 at 1:03 am
They’ve heard it all before. Sooo many times
Kevin Tran
October 28, 2020 at 10:12 pm
I don’t understand why the slaves didn’t murder the master. I would of went on a killing spree
Stig Helmer
October 28, 2020 at 10:22 pm
The surprising truth is that they had it fairly good. It’s a modern myth that only black slaves suffered in these times and in reality people of all colors and creeds had very hard lives.
Also, slaves in American were taken and held as slaves in Africa before being shipped to America and the conditions in America where better. Many slaves stayed at their work camps after slavery was abolished.
JRcat
October 28, 2020 at 10:27 pm
I’d like to see a TED video about how and why TED got so woke. They used to do interesting science videos. Not anymore.
Macville
October 28, 2020 at 10:51 pm
Liberal media people got in to their YouTube account. How can you even confront history..
Nature Owns
October 28, 2020 at 11:31 pm
@Macville you apologize to the people and accept the past
Macville
October 28, 2020 at 11:51 pm
@Nature Owns Smart so only people who deny these events or people who were responsible for the events can confront this history. I’m neither so I can’t “confront” it as you explain.
Jee Young
October 28, 2020 at 10:45 pm
People prefer nostalgia rather than history
VMAXBX
October 28, 2020 at 10:48 pm
Leftist propaganda.
Zenn Exile
October 28, 2020 at 10:49 pm
Slavery was an African Export, and the Native Americans were fighting colonies from all over Europe. The US wasn’t even a thing when that conflict started. No one should feel guilty about being born into this world as it is. NO ONE. The only guilt anyone should carry is the guilt they feel over the changes they themselves have made and the life they themselves have lived.
F. Michael Bremer-Cruz
October 28, 2020 at 10:50 pm
Thank you for sharing this. Nostalgia has done us no favors over the longer term. We need to face our hard history. It’s the only way we’ll ever hope to become a better nation that treats every American as fully valued, equal and important in every regard.
Salvatorus 1111
October 28, 2020 at 11:02 pm
Nostalgia??? Did you own slaves??? If not, WTF are you spewing?
Macville
October 28, 2020 at 10:54 pm
You can never understand history fully if you watch it through a modern mindset. Then you haven’t learned anything
Jonathan F
October 28, 2020 at 10:58 pm
Racists on confederate statues: “wE hAve 2 PrESErVe aRe hIstory.”
Ok, let’s start building statues that recognize the evils of slavery, the genocide of indigenous people and the oppression of peoples based on gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation.
The same Racists: Not that history.
The Narrative
October 28, 2020 at 11:02 pm
Why does understanding history matter if we hold no justification for what should matter?
The naturalist materialist worldview declare a random universe has laws. They
profess that non-life created life. They hold no justification for induction, which is a
prerequisite for science and logic meaning the hold no reason to trust tomorrow will be like the past. This is because they deny uniformity but are in awe of the laws of gravity. They hold no reason to trust the laws of math. They have no defense for why they should trust their minds if they are comprised of just chemicals fizzing as a result of cosmic space dust. They claim morality is just a human construct and does not exist yet they state religion is evil.
RJ D
October 28, 2020 at 11:20 pm
What ever gave you the idea that we are serious about creating a fair and just society? History is not hard it is what it is, I am not responsible for the past I am responsible for what I do every day and despite that I have taught for over 50 years that there is only one race, the human people in this country insist on multiple races which leads separate but equal. Most people in this country are still living in the past because they keep looking out the back window, I live in the present and yes I am a student of history as well, I just learn from others mistake a move forward. As far as the financial disparity according to you I’m black, today I live a comfortable live because I save money every week for 50 years. When I worked my lunch for the first 20 years cost me thirty cents, a small package of soda crackers and a can of Vienna sausages. An important note it is not the amount of money that you make it is the amount of money that you spend that creates most of the problems faced by young people today.
lacunarikain2
October 28, 2020 at 11:23 pm
More cherry picking history to say “white people bad, give me money”. Yawn
Nature Owns
October 28, 2020 at 11:41 pm
This is nothing about money…it’s humanity
lacunarikain2
October 28, 2020 at 11:44 pm
@Nature Owns no it isn’t. The “white man bad” rhetoric isn’t about humanity. You’re ignoring large portions of history if you are only after white people for bad things
Nature Owns
October 28, 2020 at 11:49 pm
@lacunarikain2 how can they move forward if they can’t even solve racism and slavery? The World only moves if we are one
Yithmaster
October 28, 2020 at 11:43 pm
So unskilled slaves who mostly picked crops also made bricks and then build the manor or maybe the bricks were made by brick makers kids cuz brick making was a skilled job and the clay to make them came from some else were shipped to the spot of the manor and then builders built it. Also Maddison sailed cross the Atlantic to Africa to enslave them or the slaves were enslaved by other Africans and sold to white people and then other white people purchased them form slave markets.
Danielle Simms
October 28, 2020 at 11:45 pm
Not every “white dude” says “but wasn’t a good master”? Not anything remotely condoning slavery has ever entered in my head or out my mouth. To say everyone behaves the same because of the color of our skin… seems hypocritical.
Nature Owns
October 28, 2020 at 11:48 pm
Accept the past or else nature will balance it off for us
Schoolfunds1
October 29, 2020 at 12:03 am
He does an excellent job explaining what WAS wrong. Didn’t name one current injustice to be addressed.
Tom Perkin
October 29, 2020 at 12:39 am
Why don’t you enlighten us? Something tells me you have a list as long as your arm…
TheGingerGrasshopper
October 29, 2020 at 12:22 am
@6:05-What he fails to say is slavery at that time was in every known part of the world. He frames it as if slavery was out of the normal in the world and just confined to America. This and the times he uses race (Example like when he makes the racial jokes like the Get out reference) is very unsettling. He is trying to point out the horrors of slavery and the “White supremacy” that was behind it but again all known parts of the world at that time some sort of slavery and slave trade and it was not just white supremacy. It was cultures that looked at there enemies as less and when they took them over they took them and sold them. these were not just white men doing this. OUR country is predominantly white but what about the Ottoman empire? How about all of the chinese dynasties? how about the places like Mauritania that did not outlaw slavery till 1981? They also did not put any laws in place to punish the act of slavery and slave trade until the mid 2000s. That country is in Africa mind you and it is not white. Where is the “White Supremacy” In all of those cultures and countries?
This whole thing smells of 1619 project bullshit.
I could go on but if you do not understand what I am saying you never will.
MCAA
Always remember, the democratic party is the party of slave owners and the kkk.
Air Robear
October 29, 2020 at 12:28 am
This needs WAY more views. Also, WAY more likes 👍
Dushan Stojadinovic
October 29, 2020 at 12:35 am
Fantastic, important talk
John Karavitis
October 29, 2020 at 12:42 am
No, we don’t. Try doing something constructive with your life, instead of feeling good by tilting at windmills.
Anthony
October 29, 2020 at 12:48 am
There’s a difference between “remembering” and “dwelling on”. But I digress. All I hear from the cultural Marxists is either “dwell upon” or “erase”.
question ade
October 29, 2020 at 1:01 am
James Maddison plays for Liecester he’s not that exciting ⚽⚽
David Peters
October 29, 2020 at 1:11 am
Having observed that there was “something” in my mother’s psyche that was a problem for her I eventually linked it to a traumatic event that happened in the 1820s to my great great great grandmother. I’m English and white. Back then a commentator said: “The way many of the poorer people are being treated in this country is worse than the way black slaves are being treated in America.” There was an opinion that the rise of agricultural technology meant that less people were needed … unemployed rural people were subjected to all sorts of restrictions … including not being allowed to leave their place of birth and being forciby returned if they tried to. The consumption of cheap alcohol was encouraged amongst these people … leading to an early death. The ‘Last Labourer’s Revolt’ in the early 1830s brought about significant changes … but uprisings by agricultural workers for the next 2-3 decades needed local militia to quell them. Initially when education for all children was proposed the Church of England said that it should it be “very basic” … just enough for them to be obedient to their “masters”. I can empathise with black people who feel that the way their slave ancestors were treated is still affecting them in some subtle way.
Remy Lebeau
October 29, 2020 at 1:22 am
You want hard truth? Let’s talk about how many black babies are killed by their own parents, let’s talk about falling for the welfare trap, and women that couldn’t keep a good man around or that picked a man that wasn’t worth keeping around. Let’s talk about the democrat plantation of the mind.
LuciferMorningstar
October 29, 2020 at 1:34 am
blah, blah, blah, blah…..Charlatan babble wokeness
Adamrox
October 29, 2020 at 10:11 am
How is a professor of history a Charlatan?
kingred06
October 29, 2020 at 10:17 pm
@Adamrox ignore the devil
Adamrox
October 29, 2020 at 10:20 pm
@kingred06 what?
kingred06
October 29, 2020 at 10:27 pm
@Adamrox the guys name is lucifer. you’re not going to get any palpable response out of that one
Jade Choi - Million Dollar Challenge
October 29, 2020 at 2:17 am
This reminds me that I got an F in US history 😅
pavelow235
October 29, 2020 at 2:28 am
All talk, no solutions.
Erik Peterson
October 29, 2020 at 2:34 am
Great history lesson..
….hard history and dark history abounds all around the planet….much of it festers for years afterward….
we all need to understand and behave w tolerance and respect for one another….we can’t change the past but we have control over ourselves each day
Lev Marchuk
October 29, 2020 at 4:29 am
Triggered white people in the comments: why DONT we just keep these things covered up
InG123
October 29, 2020 at 4:40 am
Thx for the burmese sub
Wojoness
October 29, 2020 at 5:34 am
5:29 “there is no such thing as a good master. There is only worse and worser”
Now go out there and vote for the lesser of two evils. Lmao
Enjoy!
October 29, 2020 at 2:55 pm
Well…….. you could say it’s retribution for the piss poor job we have done for the job were placed here for.
STUARTS of the EARTH, and All Things On and In the Earth!
Jenn VB
October 29, 2020 at 4:00 pm
@Enjoy! stewards but yes! well said!
Ben Kjellberg
October 30, 2020 at 7:38 pm
Indeed!
Jean-Pierre Soso
October 30, 2020 at 8:17 pm
Trump?
scobie io
October 29, 2020 at 5:57 am
I want reparations for all the injustice too all my ancestors too, for everyone. Never going to happen. Grow up.. get over it..
Ben Watson
October 29, 2020 at 8:12 am
Out of curiosity, what would reparations look like for you?
As in, if the president called you tomorrow and said “look buddy, the truth is I am fairly incompetent and I decide on policy by dialing a random number every morning and asking for advice. It is your lucky day, we noticed you wanted some reparations, what do you have in mind?”.
I am really curious as it is easy to look at a problem and say there is a problem, especially when you can point to the cause of the problem. But a solution is harder to suggest. And reparations for past injustice is a very difficult one to fix as you can’t fix the past. So seriously without judgement, how would you suggest we address this?
MAD AMERICAN
October 29, 2020 at 5:58 am
Banking history please!
Divided Perceptions
October 29, 2020 at 6:39 am
Arabs still enslave people today.
Hard facts.
Address that!
Patrick Hennig
October 29, 2020 at 9:24 am
this comment section is utter garbage. he is talking about confronting history that is mostly ignored and everything i read is hate in response. thank you internet for reminding me of what i can expect from humanity.
Fnidner
October 29, 2020 at 12:49 pm
Surprised this video didn’t get massively disliked by the always wonderful Ted subscribers haha
Anton Wereta
October 29, 2020 at 2:21 pm
Confront or eternally angle it politically?
Mary Horn
October 29, 2020 at 2:43 pm
god this comment section is… fucking awful. he was just saying we need to acknowledge our country’s past and how it contributes to the systemic racism still going on today. he’s not saying you should feel guilty. and he’s not saying the issues like this happening today don’t matter. he’s reflecting on his own history- america’s history. i was hoping people would be more understanding of this video, i didn’t expect such a bad reaction..
Nathaniel Harris
October 29, 2020 at 2:48 pm
Truth
Karthik J
October 29, 2020 at 2:50 pm
Look at the dislikes. Whites got triggered??? lol
Robert Calton
October 29, 2020 at 3:13 pm
Who would’ve known that a TED talk based off of a small piece of American History would draw so many racist’s out of their mom’s basements to come and make comments? haha
estate0007
October 29, 2020 at 4:49 pm
If you deny the Holocaust here in Germany, you will go to jail. And that’s a good thing!
fa as
October 29, 2020 at 6:30 pm
Perfect.I am not an american or an african. When I watched your video I believe that we have got also hard history.but how we can change this not equal system?
Wapadragon
October 29, 2020 at 6:42 pm
As a side note, how exactly is racism NOT your problem? Either your ancestors enslaved people or were enslaved themselves. Unless you and all of your ancestors have been living in a community completely separated from any form of society for all of history, slavery will have been a major part of who your family was. Since children take on the same attitudes as their parents, racism will be perpetrated down through your family line. It may be diluted, just like any bloodline, but it will always exist. You can’t accuse anyone of being racist because of that, but you must accept that racism does make up a part of you. There is no blame, just recognition, understanding, and the opportunity to change for the better.
arquilli1
October 31, 2020 at 2:51 pm
Truly misguided and abhorrent world view. How do you answer for people who immigrated within the last century? Families of mixed heritage (virtually all African American population)? Ideas and moral worth aren’t passed via bloodline.
Wapadragon
October 31, 2020 at 5:53 pm
Words built on love twisted into hate; a choice to be someone different manipulated into just another opportunity to argue over a point which was only meant to promote thoughtfulness. I’m not telling you how to think or what to do. I’m simply giving you a different perspective and a chance to be someone better than you were yesterday. The point I’m trying to make is that we all suffer from racism. A society built on racism affects everyone in the society. As I said, there is no blame, only recognition. Yet the first thing you talk about is precisely that. Can we not have a open and friendly discussion?
druwk
October 29, 2020 at 6:57 pm
If only the Union stuck to their promise of 40 acres and a Mule! 1619 project, and understanding can help to heal. Commit to ending racism.
Christian Seth
October 29, 2020 at 7:07 pm
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William Anderson
October 29, 2020 at 7:43 pm
@Mai Dung
Thanks for he’s info
Christopher Anderson
October 29, 2020 at 7:45 pm
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Christopher Anderson
October 29, 2020 at 7:45 pm
Sometimes I wonder if he’s uses magical powers to trade
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Angela Jay
October 29, 2020 at 7:46 pm
I’ve never heard or seen any of he’s clients complain of lost….I think he’s just too perfect
Rebecca Leeman
October 30, 2020 at 6:55 pm
THIS ENTIRE THREAD IS A SCAM OF FAKE ACCOUNTS. 🚫🚫🚫🚫
A. B.
October 29, 2020 at 9:52 pm
In my opinion, we haven’t confronted our dark history nearly as much as for example Germany. After all, it’s about a national awareness what happened, how it shaped our present and how we can do better in the future. Washington, Madison and others were slave owners AND they were founding fathers. We mustn’t deny this seemingly paradox truth just because we’d like to have a simple happy story that makes us feel proud of our history. Instead, we should analyse what went wrong and change it for our future.
Awesome Ant
October 30, 2020 at 4:33 am
Tbh, I don’t think majority of actual (studious) students would deny any of this. I just think it’s the least unique thing about America.
Lee Fwntez
October 30, 2020 at 4:59 am
Anti Slavery is literally something new in human history.
It’s not humans choosing to be this way.
Technology allows us to be free from these acts.
Look at china and russia, their reason why their aggressive is due to the fact every year they are being invaded from a border to big to defend and scarce resources.
Humans are gonna do what they have to.
Keep learning, you’ll be surprised how most things are just Random in cause and rational in Reaction.
vin far
October 29, 2020 at 11:45 pm
Good video about the origins of the West working with some African tribes to plunder West Africa with the Atlantic slave trade.
. For the robbery of the other side of the continent see East Africa Slave Trade
carried out by Muslim slavers and Swahili tribesmen.
Erik Jarandson
October 30, 2020 at 7:06 am
The outrage of slavery wasn’t the hard work, not even the hard work of children. In Madison’s time, the vast majority of children, of all races, across the planet, worked hard. In fact, making bricks was probably among the easier and less dangerous jobs. The outrage of slavery was also not the poverty. None of the children with hard, dangerous jobs came from wealthy families. None of them inherited any wealth. In fact, there are places in the World where children, to this day, spend all their waking hours working on making bricks, just like those in Madison’s basement.
The outrage of slavery was the complete devaluation of someone’s worth, and the denial of all individual potential. The vast majority of poor people _wouldn’t_ manage to build any wealth, but slaves _couldn’t_ build any wealth. They were prohibited by law and culture from even trying. For practical purposes, the difference seems small. Whether one is poor because almost everyone is, or whether one is poor because of slavery and racism, the hunger is still the same. However, the fact that many back then, and almost everyone today, recognize the outrage of slavery proves that values and principles are practical. Humiliation and absence of hope really does make suffering worse.
Rather than focusing on the material hardship, which wasn’t unique to slavery, we should focus on the humiliation and moral cruelty, which was unique to slavery.
The turnaround in social structure that enables Hasan Kwame Jeffries’ family to transfer wealth happened prior to the 1980ies, by the way. The change was in the things that allowed them to acquire the wealth in the 1980ies. To identify the problems of current social structures, we have to look at how wealth is acquired and not today.
Christopher Gruenwald
October 30, 2020 at 12:14 pm
There have been slavery to all races of people for as long as man has been around. So why does America get such a bad rap? We have fixed our mistakes and everyone truly has equal rights and opportunities today.
Alasarcher
October 31, 2020 at 7:24 pm
Because consequences of slavery in USA are still felt to this day. Slaves were released, but were given no compensation for their work. Then came racism, lynchings, Jim Crow. In any other country if a cop knelt 9 minutes and murdered a man, right wing people wouldn’t look at dead mans criminal record to try and justify his murder, like it was done in the past to people like Emmet Till. If 2 white guys followed a man armed to teeth looking for reason to murder him like it happened to Ahmaud Arbery, they would be arrested immediately, not 3 months later. Everywhere else, after slavery was abolished, freed slaves were allowed to integrate in society, they weren’t segregated, made to ride in back of the bus or to stand. Nowhere else , after slaves were freed and obtained some wealth, were they massacred and their wealth stolen or burned like it happened in Tulsa.
George Husek
October 30, 2020 at 4:57 pm
Id probably give this ted talk a 6/10 i think people dont always try to avoid hard history, or atleast i dont, and yes slavery was disgusting and horrible but it was done all over the world not just in America, it was done in Europe, Asia, some parts in ancient Mesopotamia even, it was a way of life, not saying it was right, but it is what it was, i believe its important to learn from our mistakes and to try and do better, thats what i agreed with him, but what i dont believe is that America is always racist or we still have problems, we do have problems but its so much better, than 50 or 100 years ago and we are getting better every day thank you for coming to my TED talk
DiamondMMoss
October 30, 2020 at 5:46 pm
To those 270 dislikes I hope it’s because you hate that people don’t learn about hard history and think slavery and racism are ok. If that’s not why you dislike then you must be a trump supporter
Paul Steel
October 30, 2020 at 6:23 pm
I think we would be much better served by confronting the fake parts of history, which is damn near all of it. Look at Anatoly Fomenko’s work if you want to begin to understand the fairytales passing as history.
Eli Nope
October 30, 2020 at 8:28 pm
I am still under the solid belief that the most patriotic thing a US citizen can do is to violently resist and succeed from a tyrannical government. That is the foundation of what our government is, how it was born, and what it has stood for.
Ericnsabrina Gaskins
October 30, 2020 at 10:06 pm
It’s history. Some of it is a story and some is true.. Nothing new here. .. moving along. ..🕊
ExModule
October 31, 2020 at 2:44 am
“Mistakes were made”
arquilli1
October 31, 2020 at 3:26 pm
Why does the approach to addressing inequality have to be along racial lines? Wouldn’t tackling poverty address the issues we want fixed? Who gets to determine when a society is fully just and fair? Do we police all disparities or ones that others make most salient for us like race and gender? In what society has inequality along any parameter been fixed without war or sanctioned discrimination? Does anyone care about the prison rate between men and women? Or the suicide rate? Or rate of homicide? America’s biggest problem isn’t with ignoring hard parts of history; we have a problem with weaponizing it to extract concessions out of people in the now in ways that tear us apart and yet still don’t quantifiably address the underlying inequality. We don’t form coalitions around shared values or geographic and regional causes….we NATIONALIZE RACE and say winning across racial lines is the most important thing, and if the statistics show disparities (which they always will, there are disparities across every demographic breakdown) we should forget our common bonds at the drop of a hat and wage jihad against the disparities because some news outlet told us so. Every American should be intimately familiar with hard parts of history in private and on their own terms.
Nike reck
October 31, 2020 at 8:28 pm
Those handprints on the bricks should be talked about as often as the piles of shoes in Auschwitz. I’m a german and we learn a lot about the Holocaust in school like a lot a lot, so much so that in my history major class in high school we discussed, if there’s a “having learned enough” (we decided it wasn’t but just the fact that it was a topic school wanted us to think about shows how much we talk about it in class) and I know it would be really f’ing helpful for y’all Americans of you talked about your country’s crimes as much as we do about ours.
Summer Fields
November 1, 2020 at 12:28 am
Playing on heart strings. Teaching children hatred for white people of history. It’s obvious all you want is revenge, easy money, and power. This country’s foundation was built by men who were great thinkers and fought with bravery. The only slavery you see that is present today is your own thinking. Your anger