You chaired a session called ‘Stop to think who matters’ here in Davos. Does everybody on earth matter? In many parts of the world, and perhaps we could use Ferguson as an example, this hasn’t been the case.
Everybody would say “of course all lives matter”. Our philosophical, religious and moral sensibilities would all say that, but in fact, many people don’t matter. When we say “black lives matter”, it’s a hashtag. It’s a movement. Die-ins are happening all over the country, protest movements around that phrase “black lives matter” because young black men haven’t mattered in the country and the criminal justice system has treated them very differently than my young white sons. That’s just a fact. Ferguson is a parable. Jesus told parables or stories that have messages, so Ferguson, to me, is a parable now about how young black men are treated so differently from young white men.
The country’s getting that now. I’ve been out there and spent some time with the young people of Ferguson and they came to DC and met with the president. They really are changing the conversation in the country. Some of them were drifting six months ago, just drifting in St Louis, and now they’re leading and they’re self-teaching about social movements. It’s really an impressive thing.