TED Community » Kyra Gaunt

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Useful failures, music, communication, connectedness, Twitter, laughter, adult playdates, getting in front of large groups to alter their listening of what's possible w/ race, gender, hip-hop, socmed

An idea worth spreading

Agree to be offended. A design principle for human interactions around what stops us in hard to be with conversations about race, sex, generation gaps and other differences where thinking we are better than or not as good as another group tends to show up. Agree to be Offended + Get Connected!

What if we had the freedom to be offended and stay connected? What would be possible for you and your world? And around what?

Talk to me about

What I am passionate about creative projects with college-age students that allow them to use their voice to transform higher education from within--http://tiny.cc/5S4IC.
Ebooks http://bit.ly/d1M0JS

People don't know that I'm good at

Flying a plane though I don't have my license yet.

My TED Story

My TED story? Hmm. I fell in love with YouTube and TED TALKS simultaneously when I first saw Hans Gosling's presentation. Years later I sponsored a Pangea Film Day Event at Baruch College in May 2008 with 52 people from the school and local community.

In 2007 I wrote here of a passionate desire to attend TED2008. In 2009 I became an inaugural TED Fellow which altered reality for me.

I showed my students Chris Abani's TED talk on our shared humanity and they were moved to tears. We closed the Fall '08 term with the TED talk by Majora Carter and the lid came off. We did a creative community service project asking college students to donate $ to the OLPC campaign by asking what can $199US buy in your home country.

Several TEDsters have visited my classroom incl. RuthAnn and Bill Harnisch, Bill Jensen, and Joshua Klein. In the fall of 2009, I performed at TEDxEast in NYC with Tomas Doncker, spoke at TEDx AMS in Amsterdam, and am currently organizing TEDx salons in Brooklyn, NY

Comments

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• A comment on Conversation: How did you first learn to be black or African or what was your earliest memory of learning about blackness/Africaness as different?

  Apr 22 2012: PS An early interaction can be when you were 4 or 40 depending on your circumstance.

• A comment on Conversation: How did you first learn to be black or African or what was your earliest memory of learning about blackness/Africaness as different?

  Apr 22 2012: Sorry if what I was trying to do didn't do it the way I really intended. There is NOTHING you could say that wouldn't add to the conversation. But I am REALLY interested in your earliest memories and what you can see for yourself and share with others...esp. your earliest memory with living people not mediated ideas of people but any will do. TV still today is not really a true representation of people.
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  A comment on Conversation: How did you first learn to be black or African or what was your earliest memory of learning about blackness/Africaness as different?

  Apr 22 2012: I love that folks are sharing personally. Go deeper. Keep your eye and mind on that earliest memory and ask yourself this: how did that earliest memory shape your path in life? Your understanding of your own difference or sameness from some norm or otherness? This conversation is NOT about blackness or Africanness per se. It's about using that notion to examine how a piece of the world go that way from a myriad of points of views and learned/lived experiences. Race/racism was invented by one person or institution. We all play a daily role with our memories and the assumptions we live by from them (as if they are the same for others) and the decisions we made then or make now from them.
  
  Stay on topic. Just your earliest memory and what you notice about yourself and your life (vs. others out there). I should share soon. But wanted to hear from others first.
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  A reply on Conversation: How did you first learn to be black or African or what was your earliest memory of learning about blackness/Africaness as different?

  Apr 22 2012: What if no one is "racist" like some thing they embody or that is IN them. What if we all are on a racial spectrum of understanding or misunderstanding. Calling someone racist is off-putting, distancing and stops us from hearing their humanity. There is nothing wrong. There was nothing "wrong" with your dad. He was doing what he thought he learned was right. And surely he had beautiful experiences in his life...you are here! You would not be here without him. Yes?
  
  Who is the real separatist? Them or us, those who think we are above them. Listening is the greatest gift we can give those we are offended by (with limits of course). That's my take.

• A reply on Conversation: How did you first learn to be black or African or what was your earliest memory of learning about blackness/Africaness as different?

  Apr 22 2012: What have your learned about what it means to be "black" or "African" from movies or from Asian interactions or from not being assigned that categorization until late?
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  A reply on Conversation: How did you first learn to be black or African or what was your earliest memory of learning about blackness/Africaness as different?

  Apr 22 2012: This is great that you offer your sharing. I want to get people to stick to the question. There is something absolutely brilliant that emerges if we don't go past sharing vividly and deeply about the first time and notice for ourselves what we got trained in from that earliest memory or moment that may still be impacting us today inadvertantly (I don't want that to happen ever again so I avoid that) or by somehow thinking we are past or above the impact of racial perceptions and perceived differences. The media feeds it to us daily. Even I have biases against not only whites but blacks because of it that go unchecked unless I really notice my indifference to thinking it's me, too.
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  A reply on Conversation: How did you first learn to be black or African or what was your earliest memory of learning about blackness/Africaness as different?

  Apr 22 2012: Poo poo. You are not alone in what you shared and no one would construe it as odd here, imho. Delete buttons should be removed from this conversation. Acceptance and hearing where we each are coming from. That is your experience. Ain't nothing wrong with it. But it cannot grow in a vacuum with no light or interaction. humans are meant to share and grow from the process.

• A reply on Conversation: How did you first learn to be black or African or what was your earliest memory of learning about blackness/Africaness as different?

  Apr 22 2012: NOtice that I never said I was excluding anyone above. Notice how we exclude ourselves from the discourse of discussions when no one said "Not you!" I've love to hear more about your story. What happened when the girl in class said I want to marry you? What was the reaction and where in Asia. BE SPECIFIC and as personal to your experience as you can. The more specific we are the more universal it seems believe it or not.
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  A reply on Conversation: How did you first learn to be black or African or what was your earliest memory of learning about blackness/Africaness as different?

  Apr 22 2012: Thanks Ken. Why do you ask about males? Are your responding to your earlier memory? I don't think there are any thoughts that are genetically conditioned to one sex or another of the human species. Racism is anything, in my book, that separates us from the remarkable oneness of humanity (anything else is an illusion)

• A comment on Conversation: How did you first learn to be black or African or what was your earliest memory of learning about blackness/Africaness as different?

  Apr 21 2012: I really wish this simple idea, asking one question (what is your earliest memory of learning about race or blackness or Africaneness) was common in your circle at school or work, in your social networks of innovation or your social networks of exchange and transaction. For instance what if you ask your dry cleaner, your day laborer or contractor, or your administrative assistant not to mention your boss?
  
  Watching Seth Godin's video on standing out reminded me that spreading and sharing the question and the answers in your own communities matters. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/seth_godin_on_sliced_bread.html