It was the brave souls who raised their hands: inspiration from a talk by Julie Lythcott-Haims

My school brings a variety of speakers over to campus throughout the school year and yesterday I attended “Real American” by Julie Lythcott-Haims. Lythcott-Haims attended Stanford University and Harvard Law School, and later became the Dean of Freshmen and Undergraduate Advising at Stanford University. She wrote a memoir called Real American about her experience being a biracial woman. She read sections of this memoir, written in poetic form during her speech. Her speech was charged with mixed emotions that I’m sure touched each audience member differently. For me, there were many parts of her speech that I did relate to, and there were some parts that I did not connect with as much. Another point that I want to mention that really stuck out to me is when Lythcott-Haims described her experience in life. She mentions that most people think of a story as resembling an A shape, with a climax at some point in the story. Lythcott-Haims describes her story as having a V shape, with the vertex being the point in her life she has labeled “self-loathing”. Her story is forever continuing, but what I like about the V metaphor is that her story does not have a climax.  

The first story that Lythcott-Haims shared from Real American was when she was accepted to Stanford her senior year. At this point in her life on the V, she describes it as the point of decline. In high school, Lythcott-Haims was one of the few students of color, but this didn’t stop her from becoming the president of the student council. This is also the point in her life where she recognizes that she’s not the same as the other kids in her school: she’s biracial, but she identifies as black. After LH is accepted to Stanford, she finds herself in an awkward situation one day after school when another boy who also applied to Stanford is rejected. This boy’s father confronts LH and spits anger charged words at her: my son had higher test scores than you and equally good grades. The only reason you got into Stanford is because you’re black. Those anger charged words hit me during the speech. For LH, this must’ve been devastating to hear as a young woman who had just worked her way into one of the best universities in our country.  The angry father was linking LH’s acceptance to Stanford to the fact that she was black, and in a way, I’ve experienced some similar biases being an Asian woman. When I was younger people linked my grades to the fact that I was Asian, not to the fact that I have to work equally hard to get them. 

The second story that Lythott-Haims shared was about her experience at Stanford. She struggled in her first year to find herself at the university. She said at Stanford, she has never once raised her hand in a class. She lacked the self-confidence to do so and she didn’t want to draw attention to herself. If I remember correctly, this was one of the lowest points in her life. Lythcott-Haims said she loathed herself in this period of her life. I could not relate to her, I’ve never felt a moment in my life where I can describe myself as loathing myself. I suppose one of the reasons why I, a woman who’s almost 40 years younger than LH have not felt such a self-deprecating emotion for a prolonged period of time is because of the work of the people before me who’ve fought for that equality so that my generation can feel safer belonging in America. Thank you. 

The final part of Lythcott-Haims’s speech touched my heart so much. It felt like every word she said was being soaked into my ears and that my neck was straining forward as if that would help me hear better. What I enjoyed the most about her speech was when she gave the example with God. Lythcott-Haims believes that before we are all born, God speaks to all of our souls and he asks us: who wants to go down to Earth as a person of color? Though there will be times of struggle and dispute, who wants to go down there, drive change, and bring a sense of equality to mankind? Then LH said something that I will probably remember for the rest of my life: it was the brave souls who raised their hands. I’m not religious, but this sentence didn’t in the very least fail to stick with me. 

Julie Lythcott-Haims’s speech wasn’t just a call to action…for me, it was a call to awareness. To be aware of stereotypes, of biases, to be aware of my own prejudices towards other people and even towards myself. When do I form these implicit biases about others? When do I allow stereotypes applicable to me to affect my actions. Julie Lythcott-Haims’s speech spoke to me in ways that other speeches about activism have not. It was relatable to me, even though I was not the same race as Lythcott-Haims and I am truly moved by each and every word from Lythcott-Haims’s speech.