...ahead of you. You're developing a new consciousness.
You're just starting to see how we as people of colour feel,
getting to find out a little bit of our reality.
It's gonna be a long process to really really fully understand it.
[Roberto] Stretch out your arms
and take hold of the cloth that covers you
with both hands
the cure for the pain
is in the pain
good and bad are mixed
if you do not have both
you don't belong with us
I really worked to keep my expectations out comin' up here.
And one I couldn't keep out was, um, fear.
Because I represent, uh, the oppressor.
I am the oppressor.
But I really see my responsibility
and the Euro-American responsibility
to get together with our brothers, and talk.
Come clean on what we've done, and what we've participated in,
and what our ancestors have participated in.
Put a stop to it.
And one of the things that I really appreciate from all of you is tolerance
[voice cracking]
because we haven't given you much.
And it really felt good that uh I wasn't treated by you the way we have treated you.
And I thank you.
As I look around the room, I have a lot of beautiful memories of each one of you.
Particularly what sticks out at this moment for me
is Yutaka and I being belly to belly last night,
and talking, we sort of had a little world just within the two of us.
[Yutaka] I saw the genetic link that we had between each other that was just so amazing.
And as I was looking into him, you were talking about seeing me, but I was seeing you,
I was seeing a version of myself.
[Roberto] And I could see myself inside him.
That was a younger me standing in front of me.
[Loren] I know when I got here Friday,
I found myself, would people would arrive, I was sizing them up,
y'know, I was already trying to decide who was my friend, who was my enemy.
I found out that you can really express your opinions with people who are different than you,
without it leading to any kind of violence.
Over this weekend, it was really important for me to see people express their anger against racism,
because it's something that is very hard for me to do.
I was raised, acculturated, to not express that kind of anger when I'm mistreated,
and to take it silently.
And I have always wanted to express it because when I keep it inside, I feel that it's killing me,
as it has, I believe, killed my father.
Hearing something, and being the nice Japanese man, and just sort of bowing my head,
and not wanting to create any waves or not wanting to uh, disturb people,
or not wanting to offend people,
and, as I get older I'm not longer willing to do that anymore,
it's just not acceptable.
Y'know, a lot of these guys I may never see again,
but um, they got a good, they got a special place inside here, everybody.
And if they ever need an ally, they got one.
If somebody makes a remark about a Latino,
Roberto's face will be there.
Hughs face will be there.
And I won't be able to put up with it.
If I were facing a white audience, and they were asking me what I wanted from them,
I would say justice.
Because I cannot love you until you give me justice.
First.
I think I will see change in individuals,
I saw that here with the white men, that there was change for them.
I don't think I'm gonna see much change on a societal level or institutional level in my lifetime.
And that makes me very sad to think that.
What I can hold onto are the individuals that I know are changing.
And I know David will go away and he will educate his daughters.
I know he'll do that, and the people around him.
And that's what I have to hold onto.
I really am appreciative that I was here [voice cracking] um...
You will have an impact on me
throughout the remainder of my life.
And I will be your ally
and do all I can
to stop racism wherever I encounter it.
He'll fight, and he'll struggle, and he'll intervene on my behalf, um,
and I think that it'll wear off.
That his ability to struggle against racism will wear off
unless he has other white men with him.
Unless he has other white people with him
sayin' "keep going".
If David or people like David are going to depend on people of colour
to keep him goin' against racism, it won't change.
Racism won't change.
I think we have a beautiful world that is in great danger,
I know we have a beautiful world,
and I know that it's in great danger.
And I can't think of aything I'd rather do with my life
than to see this great, um, project of human life and of life in general on this planet,
persist and go on and I'd like to leave a healthy and beautiful world for my son and any generations that come after him.
Well, if I could talk to my father,
I'd say, "be brave, be proud, and do what you believe is right, and study,
always study, never stop studying."
I think what one of the first thoughts for me
was that I think I really wanted something for my father to see,
because he thought that white people wouldn't listen,
or come to see or get really angry if they saw a film on racism.
Besides that, I think he also
has indoctrinated me for years that people of colour and whites can't get along,
there's no way that's going to happen on this earth,
it's gonna keep going on and on and on.
David, I liked it perfectly when you said, you know, about you like the anger,
I mean, it was needed, and it was honest, and it was appropriate, the word you used,
but that we do need to get that anger out,
because underneath all that anger is all that hurt
that has never been allowed to come out for us,
and then on the other end
is I think what we all saw with David and Gordon also saw was the end of it, was the possibility
to get along,
if we could just be heard and acknowledged.
I remember on Saturday evening I just broke down and I cried on Hughs shoulder,
because I told him that I think that I could rest now after this film.
That I could say that I left something for my son.
And I know that he's gonna go out into the world,
to see what I had to see,
I wanted to know, to let him know that I, that I was with him in some way,
but I wanted the world to be different for him.
I wanted him to know that he wasn't crazy.
And then I shared with you, David,
that I wanted my child to meet your children someday,
on an equal basis.
And I want that.
I will remember every one of you for the rest of my life.
I mean, I, some of you I've known,
but never quite in this way,
and for the rest of your lives, you too have this film
for your children and your partners.
And Victor, you did your people proud.
Each of you did that.
Your fathers, your grandfathers, grandmothers.
You did it for them,
and for that, from the deepest part of my heart, I want to thank each of you.
[all singing] may the work that I done speak for me
may the work that I done speak for me
and if I fall short of my goal
someone else come take a hold
may the work that I done speak for me.
may the truth that I told speak for me
may the work that I done speak for me
and if I fall short of my goal,
someone else come take a hold
may the work that I done speak for me.
may the truth that I told speak for me
and if I fall short of my goal,
someone else come take a hold
may the truth that I told speak for me
may the love that I shared speak for me...