{"id":651287,"date":"2013-04-08T19:42:25","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T23:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ted.com\/?p=74507"},"modified":"2013-04-08T19:42:25","modified_gmt":"2013-04-08T23:42:25","slug":"5-powerful-talks-about-the-quest-for-equality-in-the-united-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/651287","title":{"rendered":"5 powerful talks about the quest for equality in the United States"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Freeman-at-TED2013\"<\/p>\n

Photo: James Duncan Davidson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Freeman Hrabowski was a 9th grader in Birmingham, Alabama, when he heard a dynamic, impassioned speaker at church — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time, King was organizing a march for children, and Hrabowski begged his parents to let him be a part of it.<\/p>\n

\"FreemanFreeman Hrabowski: 4 pillars of college success in science<\/span><\/a>Hrabowski won their blessing to march in the Children\u2019s Crusade, a pivotal moment in the American Civil Rights Movement in 1963. He was taken to jail for participating, even though he was just 12-years-old. In today\u2019s talk<\/a>, Hrabowski shares the words that King said to him and the others inside the jailhouse: \u201cWhat you children do this day will have an impact on children who have not been born.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Hrabowski is the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), a college that serves students of all backgrounds and that is known for supporting students of color in two areas of study where they are severely underrepresented — science and engineering. The school currently leads the country in graduating African-Americans who go on complete Ph.Ds and MD\/Ph.Ds in these fields.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s talk<\/a>, Hrabowski notes that only 20% of Black and Latino students who start out as pre-med or pre-engineering stick with these demanding majors. That said, the numbers are low in other groups, too — only 32% of white students and 42% of Asian-American students who start rigorous science and engineering majors complete them.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not just minorities who don\u2019t do well in science and engineering,\u201d says Hrabowski. \u201cStudents in general are not making it.\u201d<\/p>\n

To hear Hrabowski\u2019s four pillars for setting students up to succeed in science and engineering, watch this talk<\/a>. As Hrabowski says, these guidelines were designed at UMBC to \u201chelp minorities students,\u201d but they can also \u201chelp students in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been 50 years since Hrabowski went to jail for marching for equality. Much has changed since then and, yet, so any inequalities persist in the United States. Here, four more talks about heartbreaking imbalances still in play today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"BryanBryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice<\/span><\/a>Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice<\/b><\/a>
\nIn the eyes of the American judicial system, we are not one and the same, says public-interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson. A third of the country’s black male population has been incarcerated at some point in their lives \u2013 a statistic that should give us all pause. In this powerful talk from TED2012, Stevenson gives a rousing critique of a judicial system that \u201ctreats you much better if you\u2019re rich and guilty than if you\u2019re poor and innocent.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"iOiO Tillett Wright: Fifty shades of gay<\/span><\/a>iO Tillett Wright: Fifty shades of gay<\/b><\/a>
\nPhotographer iO Tillett Wright has been in love with men, and she\u2019s been in love with women. Though marriage was far from her mind in 2008, when California\u2019s Proposition 8 sparked a national debate over gay marriage, the conversation still struck her like a punch. She embarked on a fascinating photo project to document the LGBTQ spectrum and the many, many different shades that exist along it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"AaronAaron Huey: America's native prisoners of war<\/span><\/a>Aaron Huey: America\u2019s native prisoners of war<\/b><\/a>
\nPhotographer Aaron Huey headed to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to record images of people living in poverty. There, a shocking 90% of residents live below the poverty line and life expectancy for men is just 47 years. As Huey says in his powerful TEDx Talk, the photo project soon became much more \u2014 an effort to understand the history of the native Lakota people, \u201ca time-line of treaties made, treaties broken.\u201d<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"LawrenceLawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim<\/span><\/a>Larry Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim<\/b><\/a>
\nIn this bold talk from TED2013, legal activist Larry Lessig addresses a central corruption at the heart of our electoral system \u2013 that in order to do well in a general election, a politician must first win the blessing of funders. And yet,\u00a0 this second group represents a scant 150,000 people out of 311 million. While, yes, politicians are responsible to the people, they\u2019re also responsible to their funders\u2014giving this small group far too much influence.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo: James Duncan Davidson Freeman Hrabowski was a 9th grader in Birmingham, Alabama, when he heard a dynamic, impassioned speaker at church — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time, King was organizing a march for children, and Hrabowski begged his parents to let him be a part of it. Freeman Hrabowski: 4 pillars […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7344,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-651287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}