Bryan Stevenson – We need to talk about an injustice
Bryan Stevenson is an Attorney who fights for the rights of the poor, underprivileged and often disenfranchised people in the United States. His presentation is poignant and to the point. No American should feel at peace while justice is not served equally to all citizens regardless of economic, social, physical or other circumstances.
What are TED Talks?
You can read more about the history of TED here
If you want to be educated, challenged and yes, even entertained, watch Bryan Stevenson’s TED talk. It will be time very well spent.
Bryan Stevenson’s TED Talk – We need to talk about an injustice
“Bryan Stevenson at TED 2012” by James Duncan Davidson – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
“Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.” – From the website of the Equal Justice Initiative
TED Take-A-Ways
Highlights excerpted from the transcript which can be viewed in full:
Bryan Stevenson – We need to talk about an injustice – Transcript
- “The United States now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. We have seven million people on probation and parole.”
- “We have a system of justice in this country that treats you much better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent. Wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes.”
- “The United States is the only country in the world where we sentence 13-year-old children to die in prison. We have life imprisonment without parole for kids in this country. And we’re actually doing some litigation. The only country in the world.”
- “Death penalty in America is defined by error. For every nine people who have been executed, we’ve actually identified one innocent person who’s been exonerated and released from death row. A kind of astonishing error rate — one out of nine people innocent…In aviation, we would never let people fly on airplanes if for every nine planes that took off one would crash.”
- “And yet, in this country, in the states of the Old South, we execute people — where you’re 11 times more likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white than if the victim is black, 22 times more likely to get it if the defendant is black and the victim is white…”
Read more about Bryan Stevenson on Wikipedia
What are Ted Talks?
TED is an acronym that represents Technology, Entertainment and Design and refers to a series of conferences around the world that features “Ideas Worth Spreading.” From its small beginnings in 1984 as a single conference, it has developed into one of the premiere venues for the sharing of information and ideas.
Included among the TED presenters are:
- Madeleine Albright, Former US Secretary of State
- Isabel Allende, Novelist and author
- Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com
- Bill Clinton, former President of the United States
- Billy Graham, spiritual leader and consultant to many influential people
- John Legend, Musician, activist
- David Pogue, Technology columnist
- Amy Tan, Novelist
- Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia
- Siegfried Woldhek, Illustrator
Read more about TED on Wikipedia