Above is the following Ted Talk entitled Why your worst deeds don’t define you Spoken by Shaka Senghor. This talk gives the perspective of a former criminal, one he was imprisoned for second degree murder. I chose him for my Ted talk because of this distinct point of view. Like the 19 year old boy from Twelve Angry Men Shaka was 19 during his incident except convicted. Shaka strangely enough telling the audience about how he killed a man tells us years before he was shot 3 times. Like in the twelve angry men both kids were abused by their parents, neighborhoods, or surroundings and in fact mostly a combination of all three. Shaka goes into and explaining at about the two minute mark the traumatic experiences he occurred and how coming up and being sent back to this “Slum” area he never received the help or counseling needed. Because of this he results as a “drug dealer with a quick temper and a semi-automatic pistol” as he says toward the beginning of his speech. Although the 19 year old in the twelve angry men was not convicted I feel as if Shaka and him have a similar story to tell if the boy spoke in the play casts. Shaka rationalizes his decision with “In my hood it is better to be the one behind the trigger than the one behind the bullet” this was a strange perspective for him to take up considering he has been on either side and felt the consequences. As Shaka goes on the audience sees this downward spiral he progressed into as a result of his previous actions. This compares to the boy in the play who had committed a crime before and began to fall into a more serious deeper spiral in which adds to the tragedy. Thus brining us back to the ending of Shakas lecture and the ending of the play where the boy wasn’t convicted as the evidence was not strong enough and Shaka is now a professor at the University of Michigan in which he has not allowed this action to impact his whole life.
I felt this video had a strong and powerful message of even when things are bad you can still prevail and have to work your self out of the rut. I personally feel this is an inspiring story although I do not want to make the same mistake as this man but I can learn from his mistakes and apply what I have learned to my own. I feel this relates to the American Dream in the most negative way possible. Most importantly the down fall of the American dream which is many peoples ambitions are so strong that they lose sight of the dreadful reality they have actually fallen into.
I felt this video had a strong and powerful message of even when things are bad you can still prevail and have to work your self out of the rut. I personally feel this is an inspiring story although I do not want to make the same mistake as this man but I can learn from his mistakes and apply what I have learned to my own. I feel this relates to the American Dream in the most negative way possible. Most importantly the down fall of the American dream which is many peoples ambitions are so strong that they lose sight of the dreadful reality they have actually fallen into.