00:00 I think there wasn't a better transition than what the former vice president said,
00:04 which was inspired, inspiration by Jane's mother.
00:08 And this poem that I wanted to share today actually is inspired by all of the matriarchs in my family.
00:14 And the fact that last year, before the year closed, I had lost seven family members since the start of the war in Darfur.
00:21 You see me smiling in this moment because I'm in a place now where I feel like I can do something to push back against the tide.
00:29 But I wouldn't be in a place to do that if I didn't have that kind of inspiration, that kind of power that I learned from not only the matriarchs in my family,
00:40 but so many matriarchs all across the world, including Dr. Godal over here.
00:45 So I hope this inspires you as much as they've inspired me.
00:48 I'm an indigenous African woman from Philly and Darfur.
00:52 I'm someone who really, really, really knows what it means to walk the thin line between hope and despair.
01:00 But in the end, there's something beautiful we can make from that.
01:04 And if we can move others and move ourselves, that's if eight billion people are doing that, that's the whole world moving and changing.
01:14 There's so much I want to say, but I'm going to just say it in the poem.
01:19 Here goes. I don't usually get nervous.
01:21 Just kidding. I always get nervous.
01:22 OK, this poem is called Mama.
01:25 I'm going to start.
01:26 Remember this as you go through your week.
01:38 So I'm walking down the street when a man stops me and says, "Eyo, sister, are you from the motherland?"
01:45 Because my skin is a shade too dark not to have come from foreign soil, because this garment on my head screams Africa,
01:52 because my body is a beacon calling everyone to come flock to the motherland, I said, "Yeah, I'm from Sudan. Why?"
01:58 He said, "Yes, you is, because you got a little bit of flavor in you. Don't get me wrong. I'm just admiring what your mama gave you."
02:06 Let me tell you something about my mama.
02:09 She can reduce a man to tattered flesh without so much as blinking.
02:12 Her words fester beneath your skin, and the whole time you won't be able to stop cradling her eyes,
02:17 because my mama is a woman, flawless and formidable in the same step.
02:21 A woman walks into a war zone and has warriors cowering at her feet.
02:25 My mama holds all of us in her face, in her body, in her blood, and blood is no good once you let it loose.
02:31 So she always holds us close, keeping us safe from caving in.
02:38 When I was seven, my mama cradled bullets in the billows of her robes.
02:44 That same night she came home and taught me how to get gunpowder out of cotton with a bar of soap.
02:49 Years later, when the soldiers held her at gunpoint and asked her who she was, she said, "I am a daughter of Adam. I am a woman. Who the hell are you?"
02:58 And the last time we went home, we watched our village burn.
03:03 Soldiers pouring blood from civilian skulls as if they too could turn water into wine.
03:09 The woman who raised me turned and said, "I'm your mother. I'm here. I won't let them through."
03:15 My mama gave me conviction.
03:17 Women like her inherit bruised wrists, tired eyes, and titanium-plated spines.
03:22 The daughters of widows wearing the wings of amputees that carry countries between their shoulder blades.
03:27 Now, I'm not saying that dating is a first-world problem, but these trifling guys seem to be.
03:33 The kind who'll quote Rumi, but not know what he sacrificed for war.
03:38 Who'll fawn over Lupita, but turn their racial filters on.
03:42 Who take their politics with a latte when I take mine with tear gas.
03:47 Every guy I meet wants to be my introduction to the dark side, wants me to open up this obsidian skin and let him read every tearful page,
03:54 because what survivor hasn't had her struggle made spectacle?
03:58 Don't talk about the motherland unless you know that being from Africa means waking up an afterthought in this country.
04:04 Don't talk about my flavor unless you know that my flavor is insurrection.
04:08 It is rebellion. It is resistance. My flavor is burden. It is grit. And it is compromise.
04:12 And you don't know compromise until you've rebuilt your home for the third time.
04:16 Without bricks, without mortar, without any other option, I turned to the man and said,
04:24 "My mother and I don't walk the streets alone back home anymore. Back home, there are no streets to walk anymore."
04:34 Thank you, everyone. Thank you.
04:36 [APPLAUSE]
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