Marc Lamont Hill's Speech Analysis

Sometimes the best way to encourage change in a movement is to honestly and truthfully reveal everything that is wrong with how things currently are and lay out ways to fix the problems that exist. I believe Marc Lamont Hill, a political commentator, professor, and a self-proclaimed social activist, used this method to encourage change quite effectively. On March 30th, 2017, Hill gave a powerful speech on social change, racism, and the importance of being an intersectional activist for the annual Carter Woodson Lecture. Hill began this lecture by honoring Carter Woodson and thanking him for his contributions to the Black community and for being one of the founding fathers of African American studies in schools. He used this as a transition

One can not just fight for causes that personally affect them. A white woman cannot just protest against sexism and not protest against racism just because they have only experienced the sexism. A black man cannot simply ignore the wrongful deportation of immigrants while fighting against racism just because he has always been a naturalized citizen. In history, social justice wasn’t received in any form until people started fighting for a cause that they couldn’t directly identify with. Woman weren’t granted suffrage until men started protesting along with the woman. Emancipation wasn’t granted until white people began fighting for the freedom of slaves along with black people. This by no means prevented social injustices against both groups from persisting, but they were still large fights one for these groups. So it is vital that we stand up for other people, even when we aren’t going through the same exact struggles. Hill also stressed the importance of understanding other groups and getting rid of stereotypes, even if we think they are positive. One that stuck out to me was getting rid of the stereotype that Asians are good at math. One, that lumps an entire continent of people together when many regions are nothing like the others. Secondly, This puts an unbelievable amount of pressure on Asian students and limits their potential in other areas like English or art. Understanding people in general will lead to a much better world. He ended the lecture by expressing the importance of believing that it is up to us, as individuals and as a group, to create change in our