Mr. Stevenson gave a standing-ovation-worthy talk at TEDMED 2012. If you've already dedicated time out of your day to read this simple blog post, I urge you to take a few more minutes to watch his talk here. Believe me, you'll be glad you did.
There are very few people I learn about via the internet or social media to whom I am immediately attracted. Bryan Stevenson made the cut. He speaks simply, directly, and humbly about real issues that matter. He gets to the heart of it. He doesn't admonish - he fixes. He's the sort of person you want to have dinner with so you can just sit and absorb his ideas.
Here are a few good quotes from the aforementioned talk. (Really, if you haven't watched it yet, WATCH IT. It'll be the most productive 20 minutes of your day.)
"I think if you're a doctor, you can do some amazing things, but if you're a compassionate doctor, you can do some extraordinary things."
"In our country we ask the question, 'Do people deserve to die for the crime they've committed?' And to me I think the real question is, 'Do we deserve to kill?'"
"The opposite of poverty is not wealth, but justice."
"In Germany, they can never have the death penalty again... [To quote a German citizen:] 'We understand our obligation to our history requires us to never engage in the systematic killing of human beings'...How would it feel if we lived in a world where the nation state of Germany was still executing people? And how would it feel if the people they were executing were disproportionately Jewish?...It's vastly unacceptable. I went through the states of the Old South and I went to death row where there's a disproportionately high percentage of people with color, and I went to the places were I saw old people humiliated as a child as a result of Jim Crow laws. I went to the places where the "White" and "Colored" signs used to be. I went to the places where people are still moving in the margins of our society with this burden of discrimination and bias sitting on top of them."
"It would be so much easier to put out the things that are so vexing and difficult. But sometimes I think you have to stand when everyone else is sitting, sometimes you have to say something when everyone else is quiet, and when you do that, yes you are burdened by all the challenges, but you are liberated by the possibilities of creating an identity that resonates in an honest way."
