Tufts University, 6pm

You can’t understand what’s happening right now in America. We are living in a country that is only 4% of world’s population yet produces 25% of the world’s greenhouse gas, has 25% of the world’s prisons. Some think we have a disposable planet, disposable people.
A green economy must be strong enough to lift millions of people out of poverty.
We don’t have any disposable species, resources, people, children, neighborhoods. It’s all precious. The Creator didn’t make any junk.

We have to refashion our economy. It takes a series of intellectual breakthroughs. My journey started with an emotional breakdown, a spiritual exhaustion. I was doing my work in neighborhoods where kids thought balloons and flowers meant funerals, sidewalk memorials. Where classrooms has 35 kids, 1 teacher, 6 books, no chalk. I’d go to many funerals where prom pictures on the program, where the person had written what they wanted read at their own funeral– because death was so common.

And so I went to Marin County. In Marin County, everybody is happy. It’s about 30 minutes from Oakland (where people are suffering, struggling) and everybody’s happy. They are fit. Eating tofu. Greeting each other. Doin’ yoga. It was a culture shock.
I was there for a spirituality retreat. Now, I’m from Oakland. You can’t tell people in Oakland, hey, what’s up, I’m going to this spirituality retreat. Want a ride? So I would have said, I’m going to a Raider’s game. I’ll see you in three days. I went. It was unbelievable – people were prayin, meditating. Going to Whole Foods. I think it’s more like whole paycheck. Hybrid cars. Solar panels on the rooftop.

I had an epiphany. What if we could combine, the creativity and the hustle and the drive of Oakland, with the creativity and the imagination and the drive of Marin County.
What if the communities that were locked out of last century’s pollution-based economy could be locked-in to this new green economy?

Big ships, big diesel trucks, delivering all over US. Children in Oakland, asthma off the charts. If we’re going to beat global warming, we’re going to have to redo buildings, make them heat-efficient, plant more trees, install solar panels, build wind farms. All of these will require lots of construction, creating thousands of jobs.
I got excited. I could see a future now = green collar jobs and not just jails.
And I believe in my heart, that there would be a convergence point. Where the best people in the country, from CA, and MA and CO, would reach out and hold hands with the best people from Black, Native American, Latino communities.
And we would be able to create a tipping point, not just a movement – a green new deal coalition – that could pick up the government and put it on the side of the people. Right now the government is on the side of the polluters, the warmongers, the incarcerators. What if we all got together? There could be a better future for this country.
So then I went back to Oakland, and I was received…with great quiet. Something happens to you when you start drinking this ‘Eco Koolaid’ – you start sounding crazy to people. I can see this vision, but it’s abstract to people. So we went to the city council, and made a proposal to make a “Green jobs Corp” – teach young people how to put up solar panels, weatherize a home. You teach a person how to put up solar panels, they are on their way to becoming an electrician. Weatherize a building, teach them to become a glazier. Get in the union. A green path out of poverty. These are not jobs that can be exported, so that’s good. But there are similar opportunities in other countries. We got a unanimous vote from the City council – and attention…

So. You’re here now. And up until now, you’ve been awkward. At Thanksgiving, trying to explain why you’re not eating that dead bird, why the SUV isn’t ok. But your time has come. Those of you who have struggled for a lack of language, a lack of models to describe this. Those of you who have been out there – that effort, that work is about to be rewarded. Because energy prices are going up, and carbon emissions are going up, and jobs are going down. Hope is going down. Soon, people are going to start looking for people who have new ideas, can propose bold solutions.
It is no accident that you were born when you were. You young scholars, you have the most important role. Big things will be decided in this century, on your watch.
I say this not to put a weight, a big responsibility on your shoulders – but to free you from the weight you already carry.
The wildest dreams you have for your life are too small. The wildest outcomes you can imagine for your community, for your country, are too small.
This is a time when we don’t need another Dr. King. We need 10,000 Dr. Kings, 10,000 Dolores Huertes, 10,000 Cesar Chavezes. Your deepest calling to greatness, you must act on it. There is enough genius in this room to solve all our problems.
When you get to the last few minutes, in the finals, the coach doesn’t put in weak players. You are here, at this moment, and the universe has put you in this position. You are potentially the best generation of humans ever born. Laid before you, is the entire wisdom of the species. You can google it. Everything to be known is laid at your feet. You have on your person better technology than the US government had when it put people on the moon. You are walking superpowers, technologically.
But we’ve made it cool to be lazy, to be skeptical, to be cynical (we call it post-modern), to be mediocre. What the world needs is not the easy cynicism.
Dr King didn’t get famous making a speech called “I have a complaint. I have a critique. I have a list of things that thoroughly piss me off.” He had a vision, something that inspired people, communicated hope.

Tender of heart, justice-driven, compassionate.
You were young, you said the pledge of allegiance, you believed it. Then you found out about slavery, and you felt burned. But you were never wrong to believe. To believe in America. And if you are willing now, to go back to those dreams you had as a child, be educated, but don’t lose the belief in possibility. You are the generation to go beyond taking America back, and take America forward.