1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:09,468 --> 00:00:11,762 I first performed this little show 4 00:00:11,762 --> 00:00:14,682 a decade ago, uh, for an audience 5 00:00:14,682 --> 00:00:16,934 of maybe 20 people, mostly friends. 6 00:00:18,436 --> 00:00:23,023 I've performed it during presidential elections, 7 00:00:23,023 --> 00:00:26,360 Supreme Court hearings, marches and protests. 8 00:00:30,948 --> 00:00:32,867 Every time I walk out there, the world has changed. 9 00:00:32,867 --> 00:00:34,243 Bye, girl. 10 00:00:34,243 --> 00:00:36,954 -Yep. -I never quite know what's gonna happen. 11 00:00:43,085 --> 00:00:46,005 -Thank you. 12 00:00:46,005 --> 00:00:48,174 Hi. Hi. Thank you. 13 00:00:48,174 --> 00:00:50,259 Thank you all so much for coming out tonight. 14 00:00:50,259 --> 00:00:53,179 Uh, I'm Heidi. Welcome. 15 00:00:53,179 --> 00:00:56,932 Uh, when I was 15 years old, I would travel the country, 16 00:00:56,932 --> 00:00:59,810 giving speeches about the United States Constitution 17 00:00:59,810 --> 00:01:01,437 for prize money. 18 00:01:01,437 --> 00:01:03,898 This, uh, this was a scheme invented by my mom, 19 00:01:03,898 --> 00:01:06,358 a debate coach, to help me pay for college. 20 00:01:06,358 --> 00:01:10,362 I would travel to big cities, like Denver, Fresno. 21 00:01:10,362 --> 00:01:12,198 -I, uh, I would win 22 00:01:12,198 --> 00:01:13,949 a whole bunch of money, bring it back 23 00:01:13,949 --> 00:01:15,951 to put in my little safety-deposit box for later. 24 00:01:15,951 --> 00:01:17,203 I was actually able to pay 25 00:01:17,203 --> 00:01:19,997 for my entire college education this way. 26 00:01:19,997 --> 00:01:22,082 -Thank you. Thank you so much. 27 00:01:22,082 --> 00:01:24,835 It was... it was 30 years ago, and it was a state school, 28 00:01:24,835 --> 00:01:26,545 -but thank you. 29 00:01:26,545 --> 00:01:28,088 Uh, a few years ago, 30 00:01:28,088 --> 00:01:29,882 I was thinking about the Constitution 31 00:01:29,882 --> 00:01:31,675 for various reasons. 32 00:01:33,511 --> 00:01:35,513 And I, uh, I thought it would be interesting 33 00:01:35,513 --> 00:01:38,349 to go back and see what my 15-year-old self loved so much 34 00:01:38,349 --> 00:01:40,351 about this document-- because I loved it. 35 00:01:40,351 --> 00:01:42,394 I was a zealot. So I called my mom. 36 00:01:42,394 --> 00:01:44,396 I asked her to send me my speech. 37 00:01:44,396 --> 00:01:46,023 She had thrown it away. 38 00:01:46,023 --> 00:01:48,025 -Uh... which is weird, 39 00:01:48,025 --> 00:01:50,110 'cause, like most moms, she saves everything. 40 00:01:50,110 --> 00:01:52,571 When I was 12, I got a buzz cut, 41 00:01:52,571 --> 00:01:54,406 so I could look like Annie Lennox, 42 00:01:54,406 --> 00:01:57,034 and she still has the bag of hair. 43 00:01:57,034 --> 00:01:59,036 -But for some reason, 44 00:01:59,036 --> 00:02:01,205 she threw away my prize-winning speech. 45 00:02:01,205 --> 00:02:05,042 So I thought what I would do is... 46 00:02:05,042 --> 00:02:09,547 resurrect the speech and the contest 47 00:02:09,547 --> 00:02:13,676 based on what I remember about myself at 15. 48 00:02:13,676 --> 00:02:15,594 Here are, uh... 49 00:02:15,594 --> 00:02:17,388 here are a few things I remember. 50 00:02:17,388 --> 00:02:18,848 In, uh, in addition 51 00:02:18,848 --> 00:02:23,185 to being just terrifyingly turned on all the time... 52 00:02:26,397 --> 00:02:30,693 ...I was obsessed with witches and the Salem witch trials, 53 00:02:30,693 --> 00:02:33,028 uh, theater-- here I am!-- 54 00:02:33,028 --> 00:02:34,280 -and, uh... 55 00:02:34,280 --> 00:02:36,365 -Thank you. Thank you so much. 56 00:02:36,365 --> 00:02:39,535 And most importantly, Patrick Swayze. 57 00:02:41,287 --> 00:02:43,831 This is the American Legion Hall in Wenatchee, Washington. 58 00:02:43,831 --> 00:02:45,708 This is where I'm from. 59 00:02:45,708 --> 00:02:47,251 The "Apple Capital of the World." 60 00:02:47,251 --> 00:02:50,129 It's a small town. It's a little bit conservative. 61 00:02:50,129 --> 00:02:54,967 This is not a-a naturalistic representation of the hall. 62 00:02:54,967 --> 00:02:57,219 I got my friend Rachel to help me reconstruct this 63 00:02:57,219 --> 00:02:58,429 from my dreams. 64 00:02:58,429 --> 00:02:59,847 I guess it's kind of like 65 00:02:59,847 --> 00:03:02,141 one of those crime victim drawings. 66 00:03:03,392 --> 00:03:06,395 Also, I forgot a door. 67 00:03:06,395 --> 00:03:08,647 Uh, oh, oh, also this. 68 00:03:08,647 --> 00:03:11,734 This is the actual book I used to prepare for this contest. 69 00:03:11,734 --> 00:03:13,569 Your Rugged Constitution. 70 00:03:13,569 --> 00:03:14,987 It is fantastic. 71 00:03:14,987 --> 00:03:17,114 It has all of these cute little cartoons 72 00:03:17,114 --> 00:03:19,199 that explain the amendments to you. 73 00:03:19,199 --> 00:03:21,952 It's, uh, it's endorsed by Herbert Hoover. 74 00:03:21,952 --> 00:03:24,455 -Uh... 75 00:03:24,455 --> 00:03:26,457 I actually noticed recently 76 00:03:26,457 --> 00:03:28,626 that this copy was published in 1956, 77 00:03:28,626 --> 00:03:30,753 which means it didn't have all the amendments, 78 00:03:30,753 --> 00:03:33,631 but that never stopped me from winning. 79 00:03:35,257 --> 00:03:37,509 Actually, I didn't lose very often, 80 00:03:37,509 --> 00:03:40,512 because I was just really fucking good at this contest. 81 00:03:41,972 --> 00:03:46,435 My fiercest competitor was this genius girl, Becky Dobbins, 82 00:03:46,435 --> 00:03:49,063 who every year gave a speech about how the Constitution 83 00:03:49,063 --> 00:03:51,607 was a patchwork quilt. 84 00:03:51,607 --> 00:03:54,276 -Uh... 85 00:03:54,276 --> 00:03:56,987 The thing she was so good at, though, 86 00:03:56,987 --> 00:03:59,031 is that, in order to win this, 87 00:03:59,031 --> 00:04:00,699 you had to draw a personal connection 88 00:04:00,699 --> 00:04:02,201 between your own life and the document. 89 00:04:02,201 --> 00:04:03,744 And Becky was great at this. 90 00:04:03,744 --> 00:04:05,579 She would tell these incredible stories 91 00:04:05,579 --> 00:04:08,540 about her... her pioneer grandma who... 92 00:04:08,540 --> 00:04:10,960 I don't know, like, ate people along the trail. 93 00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:12,753 -This part... 94 00:04:12,753 --> 00:04:15,255 this part was so much harder for me at 15. 95 00:04:15,255 --> 00:04:18,342 I just, I was very emotionally guarded as a teenage girl, 96 00:04:18,342 --> 00:04:21,261 and I did not want to talk about my grandmother. 97 00:04:25,891 --> 00:04:29,979 Uh, we'd give these speeches for rooms filled with older, 98 00:04:29,979 --> 00:04:31,981 mostly white men. 99 00:04:31,981 --> 00:04:34,566 Uh, hi. Hi. 100 00:04:36,777 --> 00:04:39,071 There's so many of you. 101 00:04:41,156 --> 00:04:43,951 Uh, in my memory, they were always smoking cigars, 102 00:04:43,951 --> 00:04:45,494 though I think that can't be true, right? 103 00:04:45,494 --> 00:04:47,079 But I would love it if you could help me out 104 00:04:47,079 --> 00:04:49,456 and just all become the men for me. 105 00:04:49,456 --> 00:04:52,668 So you are all men now. Thank you. 106 00:04:52,668 --> 00:04:54,044 Uh, thank you. 107 00:04:55,254 --> 00:04:56,880 Okay, I'm gonna start now. 108 00:04:56,880 --> 00:04:59,675 I'm gonna be 15, but I'm not gonna do anything weird 109 00:04:59,675 --> 00:05:04,304 to make myself 15, so, uh, here I am, I'm 15. 110 00:05:12,354 --> 00:05:14,314 Good morning. 111 00:05:14,314 --> 00:05:16,191 -Good morning. -Welcome to the regional finals 112 00:05:16,191 --> 00:05:18,944 of the American Legion Oratory Contest 113 00:05:18,944 --> 00:05:21,739 here at LCW Legion Post Number Ten in Wenatchee, Washington. 114 00:05:21,739 --> 00:05:24,742 This contest exists to develop a deeper appreciation 115 00:05:24,742 --> 00:05:27,911 for the U.S. Constitution among high school students 116 00:05:27,911 --> 00:05:29,997 and to help them pay for college. 117 00:05:29,997 --> 00:05:32,583 Here are the rules! Now, this is a two-part contest. 118 00:05:32,583 --> 00:05:34,918 In part one, the contestants get seven minutes 119 00:05:34,918 --> 00:05:36,670 to deliver a prepared oration 120 00:05:36,670 --> 00:05:39,715 that demonstrates his or her understanding 121 00:05:39,715 --> 00:05:42,092 of the Constitution and draws a personal connection 122 00:05:42,092 --> 00:05:46,638 between their own lives and this great document. 123 00:05:46,638 --> 00:05:51,810 In part two, the contestants will draw an amendment 124 00:05:51,810 --> 00:05:53,729 from this can. 125 00:05:53,729 --> 00:05:56,231 They will not have time to prepare a speech. 126 00:05:56,231 --> 00:05:57,858 They will have to speak extemporaneously 127 00:05:57,858 --> 00:06:00,486 on this amendment. 128 00:06:00,486 --> 00:06:01,945 Now, this part of the contest is tough, 129 00:06:01,945 --> 00:06:03,781 and I'm not gonna make it any easier on these kids. 130 00:06:03,781 --> 00:06:06,116 We want to give them the idea of what it'll be like 131 00:06:06,116 --> 00:06:09,661 when they're arguing in front of the Supreme Court one day. 132 00:06:09,661 --> 00:06:14,166 Today's contestants are Becky Lee Dobbins 133 00:06:14,166 --> 00:06:16,293 from Lawrence, Kansas, who brings us 134 00:06:16,293 --> 00:06:19,129 "The Constitution Is a Patchwork Quilt," 135 00:06:19,129 --> 00:06:22,091 and Heidi Schreck from Wenatchee, Washington, 136 00:06:22,091 --> 00:06:25,844 "Casting Spells: The Crucible of the Constitution." 137 00:06:27,721 --> 00:06:30,057 Let's give these kids a hand before the contest starts. 138 00:06:30,057 --> 00:06:32,142 -Get it out of your systems. 139 00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:38,273 All right! All right, there! 140 00:06:38,273 --> 00:06:40,067 All right, there. 141 00:06:41,860 --> 00:06:43,862 Heidi Schreck. 142 00:06:48,909 --> 00:06:50,285 Please approach the podium. 143 00:06:52,746 --> 00:06:55,040 Your time begins... 144 00:06:57,417 --> 00:07:00,838 -...now. -The Constitution is a living document. 145 00:07:00,838 --> 00:07:03,465 That is what is so beautiful about it. 146 00:07:03,465 --> 00:07:08,053 It is a living, warm-blooded, steamy document. 147 00:07:08,053 --> 00:07:11,265 -It is not a patchwork quilt. 148 00:07:11,265 --> 00:07:15,018 It is hot and sweaty. 149 00:07:15,018 --> 00:07:17,146 It is a crucible. 150 00:07:17,146 --> 00:07:18,981 Do you know what a crucible is? 151 00:07:18,981 --> 00:07:21,400 It is a pot in which you put many different ingredients 152 00:07:21,400 --> 00:07:23,402 and then you boil them up together 153 00:07:23,402 --> 00:07:25,946 until they transform into something else-- 154 00:07:25,946 --> 00:07:28,699 something that is sometimes magic. 155 00:07:28,699 --> 00:07:34,705 So, you see, our Constitution is like a witch's cauldron. 156 00:07:34,705 --> 00:07:36,707 Of course... 157 00:07:36,707 --> 00:07:38,959 you all know so much more about the Constitution 158 00:07:38,959 --> 00:07:42,045 than I do because you have all fought in wars. 159 00:07:42,045 --> 00:07:44,548 -Thank you. 160 00:07:44,548 --> 00:07:46,925 Thank you for fighting for our country, 161 00:07:46,925 --> 00:07:49,136 and also for giving me so much scholarship money. 162 00:07:50,596 --> 00:07:52,973 Looking at all of you reminds me 163 00:07:52,973 --> 00:07:55,851 of a-a fantasy I used to have as a little girl 164 00:07:55,851 --> 00:07:58,979 about being attacked by a rapist or murderer. 165 00:07:58,979 --> 00:08:01,190 A rapist or murderer who is a man. 166 00:08:01,190 --> 00:08:02,858 Like all of you. 167 00:08:04,735 --> 00:08:07,696 In my fantasy, I am able to talk the rapist and murderer 168 00:08:07,696 --> 00:08:09,781 out of murdering me because I am able 169 00:08:09,781 --> 00:08:11,742 to make you see that, just like you, 170 00:08:11,742 --> 00:08:13,202 I am a human being. 171 00:08:13,202 --> 00:08:15,662 You say, "I'm here to murder you," 172 00:08:15,662 --> 00:08:17,664 and I say, "No. Think about this for a moment. 173 00:08:17,664 --> 00:08:20,334 Just like you, I am a human being." 174 00:08:20,334 --> 00:08:25,255 And then, you see me for the first time as a human being. 175 00:08:25,255 --> 00:08:27,007 You say, "Oh, my God, you're right. 176 00:08:27,007 --> 00:08:28,884 You are a human being." 177 00:08:28,884 --> 00:08:32,304 And then you start to cry and I forgive you. 178 00:08:32,304 --> 00:08:35,098 -And a rainbow appears. 179 00:08:35,098 --> 00:08:36,975 And we climb up on this rainbow together. 180 00:08:36,975 --> 00:08:39,436 And by this time, a-a big crowd of my friends from school 181 00:08:39,436 --> 00:08:42,231 has gathered on the street below, and they're so jealous 182 00:08:42,231 --> 00:08:43,857 to see me walking on this rainbow. 183 00:08:43,857 --> 00:08:45,484 "How can she be so special? 184 00:08:45,484 --> 00:08:47,402 Doesn't she have to be in school?" 185 00:08:47,402 --> 00:08:50,364 And I'm like, "I'm delivering this poor man to heaven. 186 00:08:50,364 --> 00:08:53,033 Have a good time in gym class!" 187 00:08:54,660 --> 00:08:59,122 How does this relate to the crucible of the Constitution? 188 00:08:59,122 --> 00:09:02,334 Well, you see, a crucible is a boiling pot-- 189 00:09:02,334 --> 00:09:03,543 that is one definition-- 190 00:09:03,543 --> 00:09:06,505 but a crucible, it's also a severe test, 191 00:09:06,505 --> 00:09:08,924 a test of patience or belief. 192 00:09:08,924 --> 00:09:11,885 A-A severe test such as the one you and I went through together 193 00:09:11,885 --> 00:09:13,762 -when you wanted to murder me. 194 00:09:13,762 --> 00:09:16,473 Just like with our situation, our Constitution 195 00:09:16,473 --> 00:09:18,225 can be thought of as a boiling pot 196 00:09:18,225 --> 00:09:21,937 in which we are thrown together in sizzling and steamy conflict 197 00:09:21,937 --> 00:09:26,191 to find out what it is we truly believe. 198 00:09:26,191 --> 00:09:30,028 This is why it's such a radical document. 199 00:09:30,028 --> 00:09:32,155 202 years ago, 200 00:09:32,155 --> 00:09:34,116 a group of magicians got together 201 00:09:34,116 --> 00:09:36,827 on a sweltering summer day in Philadelphia, 202 00:09:36,827 --> 00:09:39,663 and they wanted to kill each other, but instead... 203 00:09:41,665 --> 00:09:45,335 ...they sat down together and they performed 204 00:09:45,335 --> 00:09:49,423 a collective act of ethical visualization. 205 00:09:49,423 --> 00:09:53,093 Or as I like to call it, a spell. 206 00:09:54,594 --> 00:09:56,888 Now, did they get everything right? No. 207 00:09:56,888 --> 00:09:58,515 No, they didn't. 208 00:09:58,515 --> 00:10:00,809 But that's what amendments are for, right? 209 00:10:00,809 --> 00:10:02,436 Which is why, to conclude my speech, 210 00:10:02,436 --> 00:10:05,063 I would like to tell you about the most magical 211 00:10:05,063 --> 00:10:09,401 and mysterious amendment of them all: Amendment Nine. 212 00:10:10,902 --> 00:10:13,530 Amendment Nine says: 213 00:10:13,530 --> 00:10:16,116 "The enumeration in the Constitution, 214 00:10:16,116 --> 00:10:17,659 "of certain rights, 215 00:10:17,659 --> 00:10:21,330 "shall not be construed to deny or disparage others 216 00:10:21,330 --> 00:10:23,582 retained by the people." 217 00:10:23,582 --> 00:10:26,418 Do you know what that means? 218 00:10:26,418 --> 00:10:29,504 It means just because a certain right 219 00:10:29,504 --> 00:10:31,506 is not listed in the Constitution, 220 00:10:31,506 --> 00:10:33,717 it doesn't mean you don't have that right. 221 00:10:33,717 --> 00:10:36,762 The fact is there was no way for the framers 222 00:10:36,762 --> 00:10:38,722 to put down every single right we have. 223 00:10:38,722 --> 00:10:40,766 I mean, the... the-the right to brush your teeth. 224 00:10:40,766 --> 00:10:42,142 Yes, you've got it. 225 00:10:42,142 --> 00:10:45,604 -But how long do we want this document to be? - 226 00:10:45,604 --> 00:10:48,273 Here's another example. When I was a little girl, 227 00:10:48,273 --> 00:10:52,027 -I had an imaginary friend named Reba McEntire. - 228 00:10:52,027 --> 00:10:53,862 She was not related to the singer. 229 00:10:53,862 --> 00:10:56,490 Just because our Constitution does not proclaim 230 00:10:56,490 --> 00:10:59,326 the having of imaginary friends as one of my rights 231 00:10:59,326 --> 00:11:01,286 does not mean I can be thrown in jail 232 00:11:01,286 --> 00:11:03,413 for being friends with Reba McEntire. 233 00:11:03,413 --> 00:11:05,165 Isn't that amazing? 234 00:11:05,165 --> 00:11:06,666 Think about it for a moment. 235 00:11:06,666 --> 00:11:08,627 Our Constitution doesn't tell you 236 00:11:08,627 --> 00:11:13,673 all the rights that you have because it doesn't know. 237 00:11:13,673 --> 00:11:17,302 Justice William O. Douglas, the great Supreme Court justice, 238 00:11:17,302 --> 00:11:20,013 when he talked about Amendment Nine, 239 00:11:20,013 --> 00:11:22,933 he used the word "penumbra." 240 00:11:22,933 --> 00:11:25,894 What is a penumbra? 241 00:11:25,894 --> 00:11:28,271 Well, gentlemen... 242 00:11:30,273 --> 00:11:33,068 ...here I am, standing in the light, 243 00:11:33,068 --> 00:11:35,987 and there you are, sitting in the darkness. 244 00:11:35,987 --> 00:11:39,533 And, uh, this space between us, 245 00:11:39,533 --> 00:11:42,369 this space right here of partial illumination, 246 00:11:42,369 --> 00:11:47,374 this shadowy space right here-- this is a penumbra. 247 00:11:51,545 --> 00:11:53,296 People laughed at Douglas 248 00:11:53,296 --> 00:11:55,215 for calling it this, but I like it. 249 00:11:55,215 --> 00:11:57,884 I think it's a helpful way to think about the Constitution 250 00:11:57,884 --> 00:11:59,719 and also maybe about our lives. 251 00:11:59,719 --> 00:12:01,138 I mean, here we are, 252 00:12:01,138 --> 00:12:04,266 stuck between what we can see and what we can't. 253 00:12:04,266 --> 00:12:06,977 We are trapped in a penumbra. 254 00:12:06,977 --> 00:12:09,187 It-It-It's like how when I was a little girl, 255 00:12:09,187 --> 00:12:11,022 I used to believe that I was a changeling. 256 00:12:11,022 --> 00:12:12,858 I mean, I still think I might be a changeling, 257 00:12:12,858 --> 00:12:15,318 but I'm gonna go ahead and keep acting like a human being 258 00:12:15,318 --> 00:12:17,904 until my real family comes along to claim me. 259 00:12:17,904 --> 00:12:19,406 -I would sit 260 00:12:19,406 --> 00:12:21,658 on the shores of Spirit Lake in the shadow 261 00:12:21,658 --> 00:12:23,243 of Mount St. Helens, and I would wait 262 00:12:23,243 --> 00:12:25,579 for my real family, the swimming fairies, 263 00:12:25,579 --> 00:12:28,373 to grab me by the legs and pull me under the water. 264 00:12:28,373 --> 00:12:31,710 And we would swim down deep, as deep as we could possibly go, 265 00:12:31,710 --> 00:12:33,879 and just when I thought I was about to drown, 266 00:12:33,879 --> 00:12:37,757 we would pop up in another lake on the other side of the world. 267 00:12:37,757 --> 00:12:39,968 And when I stepped onto the shores of this new land, 268 00:12:39,968 --> 00:12:43,805 I would finally understand who I really was. 269 00:12:44,973 --> 00:12:48,518 That is why I love Amendment Nine so much. 270 00:12:49,811 --> 00:12:53,190 Because it acknowledges that who we are now 271 00:12:53,190 --> 00:12:55,650 might not be who we will become. 272 00:12:55,650 --> 00:12:57,527 It, uh, it leaves 273 00:12:57,527 --> 00:13:00,614 a little room for the future self, and... 274 00:13:00,614 --> 00:13:02,449 and-and we-we just have to hope 275 00:13:02,449 --> 00:13:04,618 we don't drown in the process of figuring out what that is! 276 00:13:04,618 --> 00:13:06,870 -Thank you! Thank you so much. Thank you. 277 00:13:06,870 --> 00:13:09,247 -Thank you, sir. 278 00:13:09,247 --> 00:13:11,583 Thank you. 279 00:13:11,583 --> 00:13:13,710 -Thank you. -No applause, please! 280 00:13:18,256 --> 00:13:21,468 Now for the extemporaneous part of our contest. 281 00:13:21,468 --> 00:13:23,136 Miss Schreck, I'm gonna ask you 282 00:13:23,136 --> 00:13:24,387 to pick an amendment from this can. 283 00:13:24,387 --> 00:13:26,389 I loved this part of the contest. 284 00:13:26,389 --> 00:13:28,183 The, uh, the adrenaline, trying to remember 285 00:13:28,183 --> 00:13:29,726 all the facts about an amendment. 286 00:13:29,726 --> 00:13:31,978 Also, my dad coached me on this part, 287 00:13:31,978 --> 00:13:33,772 and it was nice because I was 15, 288 00:13:33,772 --> 00:13:35,690 so we were having a really hard time, 289 00:13:35,690 --> 00:13:38,777 and, uh, talking about the Constitution 290 00:13:38,777 --> 00:13:42,697 was a way for us both to pretend I wasn't becoming a woman. 291 00:13:45,033 --> 00:13:47,369 Amendment Fourteen, section 1. 292 00:13:47,369 --> 00:13:49,955 Amendment Fourteen is big, folks. 293 00:13:49,955 --> 00:13:51,748 It contains four different sections 294 00:13:51,748 --> 00:13:54,251 that have changed the lives of every person in this room. 295 00:13:54,251 --> 00:13:57,712 Now, because Fourteen is such a bear, 296 00:13:57,712 --> 00:14:00,757 the contestant will only address section 1 of this amendment. 297 00:14:00,757 --> 00:14:02,133 Ready? 298 00:14:02,133 --> 00:14:04,469 Amendment Fourteen, section 1: 299 00:14:04,469 --> 00:14:08,473 "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, 300 00:14:08,473 --> 00:14:10,183 "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, 301 00:14:10,183 --> 00:14:12,185 "are citizens of the United States 302 00:14:12,185 --> 00:14:14,771 "and of the state in which they reside. 303 00:14:14,771 --> 00:14:18,024 "No state shall make or enforce any law 304 00:14:18,024 --> 00:14:20,777 "which shall abridge the privileges or immunities 305 00:14:20,777 --> 00:14:22,612 "of citizens of the United States; 306 00:14:22,612 --> 00:14:24,948 "nor shall any state deprive any person 307 00:14:24,948 --> 00:14:30,579 "of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; 308 00:14:30,579 --> 00:14:33,206 "nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction 309 00:14:33,206 --> 00:14:35,333 the equal protection of the law." 310 00:14:35,333 --> 00:14:37,043 Well done. 311 00:14:37,043 --> 00:14:39,379 She will have one minute for her overview 312 00:14:39,379 --> 00:14:42,591 and two minutes to address each of the four clauses 313 00:14:42,591 --> 00:14:44,634 of Amendment Fourteen, section 1. 314 00:14:44,634 --> 00:14:46,052 Just a reminder: 315 00:14:46,052 --> 00:14:47,971 make this as personal as possible. 316 00:14:47,971 --> 00:14:50,599 Tell us how this amendment has affected your life. 317 00:14:50,599 --> 00:14:53,310 Your time begins now! 318 00:14:53,310 --> 00:14:55,604 Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay! 319 00:14:55,604 --> 00:14:57,981 So, the Fourteenth Amendment is like 320 00:14:57,981 --> 00:15:00,233 a giant, supercharged force field 321 00:15:00,233 --> 00:15:01,985 protecting all of your human rights. 322 00:15:01,985 --> 00:15:04,279 It, uh, it comes right after the Thirteenth Amendment, 323 00:15:04,279 --> 00:15:06,364 which, as you all know, abolished slavery, 324 00:15:06,364 --> 00:15:08,617 ending the most shameful chapter in our nation's history. 325 00:15:08,617 --> 00:15:09,993 Lincoln knew, though, 326 00:15:09,993 --> 00:15:12,162 that just abolishing slavery would not be enough, 327 00:15:12,162 --> 00:15:13,747 so he got his friend John Bingham 328 00:15:13,747 --> 00:15:15,790 to help him write the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments: 329 00:15:15,790 --> 00:15:17,626 the Reconstruction amendments. 330 00:15:17,626 --> 00:15:20,295 These amendments made the newly freed slaves citizens, 331 00:15:20,295 --> 00:15:22,422 gave them equal protection under the law 332 00:15:22,422 --> 00:15:24,049 and protected their right to vote. 333 00:15:24,049 --> 00:15:25,759 This amendment, Fourteen, 334 00:15:25,759 --> 00:15:28,345 huge force in the civil rights movement. 335 00:15:28,345 --> 00:15:30,513 It, uh, it facilitated the desegregation 336 00:15:30,513 --> 00:15:32,432 of schools, buses, hospitals, 337 00:15:32,432 --> 00:15:34,309 although that would take over a hundred years. 338 00:15:34,309 --> 00:15:37,437 And let's be clear, somebody had to activate the force field. 339 00:15:37,437 --> 00:15:40,440 It, uh, it took the heroic work of civil rights leaders 340 00:15:40,440 --> 00:15:41,816 like-like Dorothy Height, 341 00:15:41,816 --> 00:15:43,652 Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr. 342 00:15:43,652 --> 00:15:46,571 to rouse the great powers of Amendment Fourteen. 343 00:15:46,571 --> 00:15:48,907 Uh, uh, uh... Oh! I do want to note 344 00:15:48,907 --> 00:15:51,910 that Amendment Fourteen gave equal rights only to men. 345 00:15:51,910 --> 00:15:53,828 Black women were not given these rights. 346 00:15:53,828 --> 00:15:55,455 No women were given these rights. 347 00:15:55,455 --> 00:15:58,625 The question of Native American rights never even came up. 348 00:15:58,625 --> 00:16:01,961 Even Lincoln was trapped in a penumbra on that one. 349 00:16:01,961 --> 00:16:04,839 This is the first time that the word "male" 350 00:16:04,839 --> 00:16:07,092 is explicitly written in the Constitution. 351 00:16:07,092 --> 00:16:10,095 So, whereas before there was a little room for interpretation 352 00:16:10,095 --> 00:16:11,596 about whether women could vote, 353 00:16:11,596 --> 00:16:14,391 now it was explicit: we could not vote. 354 00:16:14,391 --> 00:16:16,851 Lincoln asked us to wait just a tiny bit longer 355 00:16:16,851 --> 00:16:19,604 to get the vote-- just, like, 54 years longer. 356 00:16:19,604 --> 00:16:21,815 -Voting is outlined in section 2. 357 00:16:21,815 --> 00:16:23,900 Please stick to Amendment Fourteen, section 1. 358 00:16:23,900 --> 00:16:26,486 Right, sorry. Wonderful. 359 00:16:26,486 --> 00:16:28,488 -My dad says 360 00:16:28,488 --> 00:16:31,157 this is what we call the penalty box of democracy. 361 00:16:31,157 --> 00:16:33,284 Sometimes you have to wait for things. 362 00:16:33,284 --> 00:16:35,745 Sometimes it's better to fix one bad thing 363 00:16:35,745 --> 00:16:38,498 -than to try to fix two bad things and fail. - 364 00:16:38,498 --> 00:16:39,874 Clause 1. 365 00:16:39,874 --> 00:16:42,085 "Any persons born on U.S. soil 366 00:16:42,085 --> 00:16:44,129 "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof 367 00:16:44,129 --> 00:16:46,339 are citizens of the United States." 368 00:16:46,339 --> 00:16:48,883 Your time begins now. 369 00:16:48,883 --> 00:16:50,885 Clause 1 overturned 370 00:16:50,885 --> 00:16:54,180 the most disgusting Supreme Court decision in history: 371 00:16:54,180 --> 00:16:57,183 Dred Scott v. Sandford. 372 00:16:57,183 --> 00:17:01,938 Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his freedom in 1857 373 00:17:01,938 --> 00:17:03,648 after living as a free man 374 00:17:03,648 --> 00:17:05,859 with his wife and daughters in Illinois. 375 00:17:05,859 --> 00:17:08,695 Not only did our Supreme Court rule 376 00:17:08,695 --> 00:17:11,406 that Dred Scott would have to go back to being a slave, 377 00:17:11,406 --> 00:17:14,117 they decided in a seven to two decision 378 00:17:14,117 --> 00:17:16,411 that no person of African ancestry 379 00:17:16,411 --> 00:17:18,955 could ever become a United States citizen. 380 00:17:18,955 --> 00:17:22,834 Four members of this court owned slaves themselves. 381 00:17:22,834 --> 00:17:26,045 Although he lost, Dred Scott's brave action 382 00:17:26,045 --> 00:17:28,256 ignited the forces of abolition, 383 00:17:28,256 --> 00:17:31,593 led to Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation 384 00:17:31,593 --> 00:17:33,219 and enshrined in law 385 00:17:33,219 --> 00:17:35,346 right here in the Fourteenth Amendment 386 00:17:35,346 --> 00:17:37,098 the right of every person 387 00:17:37,098 --> 00:17:39,768 born on U.S. soil to become a citizen 388 00:17:39,768 --> 00:17:42,896 except Native Americans. 389 00:17:42,896 --> 00:17:45,148 One other tricky thing about this clause is that 390 00:17:45,148 --> 00:17:46,691 it actually-- it doesn't say anything about 391 00:17:46,691 --> 00:17:48,193 how immigrants can become citizens. 392 00:17:48,193 --> 00:17:49,861 It leaves it up to the whims of lawmakers 393 00:17:49,861 --> 00:17:51,654 to decide who they think is a good immigrant 394 00:17:51,654 --> 00:17:52,781 or a bad immigrant. 395 00:17:52,781 --> 00:17:53,948 For example, 396 00:17:53,948 --> 00:17:55,867 in 1882, our government decided 397 00:17:55,867 --> 00:17:58,161 that Chinese immigrants were dangerous and stealing jobs. 398 00:17:58,161 --> 00:18:00,330 So they passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, 399 00:18:00,330 --> 00:18:03,958 which made immigration from China illegal until 1943. 400 00:18:03,958 --> 00:18:06,586 On a... on a... on a... on a deeply personal note, 401 00:18:06,586 --> 00:18:08,421 my great-great-grandmother Theresa 402 00:18:08,421 --> 00:18:10,715 was considered a good immigrant. 403 00:18:10,715 --> 00:18:12,383 She came to Washington State 404 00:18:12,383 --> 00:18:14,844 from Gengenbach, Germany, in 1879 405 00:18:14,844 --> 00:18:16,095 because my great-great-grandfather 406 00:18:16,095 --> 00:18:18,056 ordered her from a catalog. 407 00:18:20,642 --> 00:18:23,645 The reason that she was considered a good immigrant 408 00:18:23,645 --> 00:18:27,315 is that the male-to-female ratio in Washington State at this time 409 00:18:27,315 --> 00:18:29,067 was nine to one. 410 00:18:29,067 --> 00:18:31,611 I-I don't know if she wanted to come to America or not. 411 00:18:31,611 --> 00:18:35,073 I do know that she died at age 36 in a mental institution 412 00:18:35,073 --> 00:18:37,200 and that therefore she was never actually able to become 413 00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:39,828 -a citizen. Thank you! -Clause 2. 414 00:18:39,828 --> 00:18:41,788 "No state shall make or enforce any law 415 00:18:41,788 --> 00:18:44,791 "which shall abridge the privileges or immunities 416 00:18:44,791 --> 00:18:46,835 of citizens of the United States." 417 00:18:46,835 --> 00:18:49,462 Your time begins now. 418 00:18:49,462 --> 00:18:51,589 Clause 2 ensures that you, as Americans, 419 00:18:51,589 --> 00:18:53,925 are free to travel from state to state, 420 00:18:53,925 --> 00:18:56,261 free to buy property in any state 421 00:18:56,261 --> 00:18:59,681 and free to pursue happiness in every state. 422 00:19:02,100 --> 00:19:06,688 Here's a fascinating story about interstate travel. 423 00:19:09,107 --> 00:19:12,694 The lack of women during my great-great-grandmother's time 424 00:19:12,694 --> 00:19:14,946 was considered such a big problem in Washington State 425 00:19:14,946 --> 00:19:18,116 that in 1865, a man named Asa Mercer 426 00:19:18,116 --> 00:19:21,494 cooked up a scheme to deliver 500 women to Seattle. 427 00:19:21,494 --> 00:19:23,538 He went back east to Lowell, Massachusetts, 428 00:19:23,538 --> 00:19:24,956 and he told the women there, 429 00:19:24,956 --> 00:19:27,041 many of whom had been working in factories 430 00:19:27,041 --> 00:19:28,668 since they were seven years old, 431 00:19:28,668 --> 00:19:30,962 that Seattle was a paradise for ladies. 432 00:19:30,962 --> 00:19:34,048 It was a place they could live free and independent lives, 433 00:19:34,048 --> 00:19:37,302 become writers, teachers, milliners. 434 00:19:37,302 --> 00:19:39,888 Then he went back to Seattle and told the men there 435 00:19:39,888 --> 00:19:43,433 if they gave him 300 bucks, he could guarantee them a wife. 436 00:19:43,433 --> 00:19:46,102 Now, even with all this money from the men, 437 00:19:46,102 --> 00:19:48,897 Mercer could not afford a boat, so he wrote to Lincoln. 438 00:19:48,897 --> 00:19:52,108 He asked for an old military ship to transport the women. 439 00:19:52,108 --> 00:19:55,403 Lincoln did not write back. It was 1865. He was busy. 440 00:19:55,403 --> 00:19:57,614 -So, Mercer hopped a train, 441 00:19:57,614 --> 00:20:00,867 took it all the way to D.C. to talk to Lincoln in person 442 00:20:00,867 --> 00:20:02,327 only to arrive and discover 443 00:20:02,327 --> 00:20:04,162 the capital was wreathed in black 444 00:20:04,162 --> 00:20:06,664 because Lincoln had just been assassinated. 445 00:20:06,664 --> 00:20:09,083 Now, you'd think this would've stopped Mercer's plan, 446 00:20:09,083 --> 00:20:10,752 -but no, no, no, no. 447 00:20:10,752 --> 00:20:13,212 Instead, he went to Ulysses S. Grant 448 00:20:13,212 --> 00:20:17,050 and he said he had talked to Lincoln-- 449 00:20:17,050 --> 00:20:19,719 -like, a while back-- 450 00:20:19,719 --> 00:20:22,722 and that Lincoln had promised him this boat for the women 451 00:20:22,722 --> 00:20:24,682 and, yes, he was sad about Lincoln, 452 00:20:24,682 --> 00:20:25,683 but the boat? 453 00:20:25,683 --> 00:20:27,894 Grant said, "Take it." 454 00:20:27,894 --> 00:20:30,313 A few days into this journey, 455 00:20:30,313 --> 00:20:32,732 the ship's crew started to spread rumors on board 456 00:20:32,732 --> 00:20:34,943 that Seattle was not a paradise for ladies. 457 00:20:34,943 --> 00:20:36,945 The men there were loggers, they were drunks, 458 00:20:36,945 --> 00:20:38,196 they beat up their wives. 459 00:20:38,196 --> 00:20:39,822 So, when the ship reached Chile, 460 00:20:39,822 --> 00:20:42,158 15 women demanded to get off the boat. 461 00:20:42,158 --> 00:20:44,327 Mercer said, sure, they could deboard in the morning. 462 00:20:44,327 --> 00:20:45,745 And then, in the middle of the night, 463 00:20:45,745 --> 00:20:48,748 he pulled up anchor, effectively kidnapping them. 464 00:20:48,748 --> 00:20:51,417 My-my-my-my great-great-grandmother Theresa 465 00:20:51,417 --> 00:20:53,169 was purchased for $75, 466 00:20:53,169 --> 00:20:54,921 when my great-great grandfather ordered her 467 00:20:54,921 --> 00:20:56,714 -from The Matrimonial Times-- Okay. - 468 00:20:56,714 --> 00:20:58,800 -Clause 3. -Just hold on. Hold on. I just-- Hold on. 469 00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:00,468 Ever since I've been making this, I just-- 470 00:21:00,468 --> 00:21:02,971 I've been wondering about my great-great-grandma Theresa. 471 00:21:02,971 --> 00:21:06,391 She died of melancholia. That was her official diagnosis. 472 00:21:06,391 --> 00:21:10,144 "Melancholia. Age 36. Western State Mental Hospital." 473 00:21:10,144 --> 00:21:11,688 I also grew up believing 474 00:21:11,688 --> 00:21:14,607 that all the women in my family on my mom's side 475 00:21:14,607 --> 00:21:16,359 inherited chemical depression 476 00:21:16,359 --> 00:21:18,361 from Theresa and her melancholia. 477 00:21:18,361 --> 00:21:21,990 We, uh-- we all take various forms of medication for it. 478 00:21:21,990 --> 00:21:24,575 -They're working. 479 00:21:24,575 --> 00:21:27,620 We also all have the same way of crying-- 480 00:21:27,620 --> 00:21:30,248 this, like, very loud, melodramatic way of crying 481 00:21:30,248 --> 00:21:33,167 that I like to call "Greek Tragedy Crying." 482 00:21:33,167 --> 00:21:35,128 It's where, no matter what happens to you, 483 00:21:35,128 --> 00:21:38,756 you just-- you howl and you wail as if, uh, uh... 484 00:21:38,756 --> 00:21:40,758 well, as if-- as if you've just killed your own children 485 00:21:40,758 --> 00:21:41,926 because your husband betrayed you. 486 00:21:41,926 --> 00:21:43,511 And it sounds kind of like this. 487 00:21:57,567 --> 00:22:00,570 I lost so many boyfriends that way. 488 00:22:02,655 --> 00:22:04,282 One of my boyfriends-- 489 00:22:04,282 --> 00:22:06,701 actually, the boyfriend who stayed, the one I married-- 490 00:22:06,701 --> 00:22:08,703 he explained to me that the-- that the crying 491 00:22:08,703 --> 00:22:10,538 just felt really aggressive, you know? 492 00:22:10,538 --> 00:22:13,082 That it kind of felt like I was crying right at him. 493 00:22:14,709 --> 00:22:16,335 Anyway, uh, 494 00:22:16,335 --> 00:22:17,503 since I've been making this, I just-- 495 00:22:17,503 --> 00:22:19,505 I've been wondering about the diagnosis. 496 00:22:19,505 --> 00:22:22,550 There are no records of what Theresa's daily life was like, 497 00:22:22,550 --> 00:22:24,594 but it seems like it must have been so hard, 498 00:22:24,594 --> 00:22:26,345 because it certainly was for other women. 499 00:22:26,345 --> 00:22:28,765 Actually, these are some headlines I found 500 00:22:28,765 --> 00:22:30,600 in the Cowlitz County Newspaper. 501 00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:32,268 This was her hometown newspaper. 502 00:22:32,268 --> 00:22:34,729 These headlines all happened in one week. 503 00:22:34,729 --> 00:22:37,231 "Napavine Man Shoots Wife in Back." 504 00:22:37,231 --> 00:22:40,318 "Husband Stomps Wife's Face with Spiked Logging Boots." 505 00:22:40,318 --> 00:22:43,237 "Jealous Husband Ties Woman to Bed for Three Days." 506 00:22:43,237 --> 00:22:46,574 And this one. "B. Phelps ran into her daughter's apartment 507 00:22:46,574 --> 00:22:48,159 "to find her son-in-law in the act 508 00:22:48,159 --> 00:22:49,786 "of shooting her fleeing daughter. 509 00:22:49,786 --> 00:22:51,370 "'Get out of here,' he said. 510 00:22:51,370 --> 00:22:54,123 -'Everything here belongs to me.'" - 511 00:22:55,958 --> 00:22:58,711 Clause 3. 512 00:22:58,711 --> 00:23:00,588 "Nor shall any state deprive any person 513 00:23:00,588 --> 00:23:04,425 of life, liberty or property without due process of law." 514 00:23:04,425 --> 00:23:06,677 Your time begins now. 515 00:23:06,677 --> 00:23:08,221 Clause 3... 516 00:23:08,221 --> 00:23:11,891 is one of the most miraculous in our entire Constitution. 517 00:23:11,891 --> 00:23:14,393 We stole it from the Magna Carta. 518 00:23:14,393 --> 00:23:17,855 It ensures that the government cannot lock you up, 519 00:23:17,855 --> 00:23:22,443 take your stuff or kill you without a good reason. 520 00:23:24,028 --> 00:23:28,616 It is also the heart of the 1973 Supreme Court decision 521 00:23:28,616 --> 00:23:29,909 Roe v. Wade, 522 00:23:29,909 --> 00:23:32,912 a case that is all about penumbras. 523 00:23:32,912 --> 00:23:35,873 With the help of Justice William O. Douglas's 524 00:23:35,873 --> 00:23:37,959 beautiful penumbra metaphor, 525 00:23:37,959 --> 00:23:40,336 Justice Harry Blackmun used the Ninth Amendment 526 00:23:40,336 --> 00:23:42,421 to shine a light into the other amendments. 527 00:23:42,421 --> 00:23:44,924 And he found there, in the shadows of the Constitution, 528 00:23:44,924 --> 00:23:46,300 the right to privacy, 529 00:23:46,300 --> 00:23:47,927 and he argued that this gave a woman 530 00:23:47,927 --> 00:23:50,555 the right to decide what to do with her own body. 531 00:23:50,555 --> 00:23:52,723 Uh, well, technically, 532 00:23:52,723 --> 00:23:55,518 he argued that a doctor and his patient have a right to privacy 533 00:23:55,518 --> 00:23:57,895 so that he can decide what to do with her body. 534 00:23:59,021 --> 00:24:00,940 This was a very special moment 535 00:24:00,940 --> 00:24:02,608 for the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. 536 00:24:02,608 --> 00:24:04,026 They, uh, they came together 537 00:24:04,026 --> 00:24:06,696 in a-a "Wonder Twin powers, activate" kind of way 538 00:24:06,696 --> 00:24:10,116 to protect a woman's right to choose. 539 00:24:10,116 --> 00:24:12,743 Of course, depending on your view, gentlemen, 540 00:24:12,743 --> 00:24:15,580 you may consider this an unholy alliance. 541 00:24:15,580 --> 00:24:17,915 My view, which I do feel obligated to share, 542 00:24:17,915 --> 00:24:20,334 even if it endangers my scholarship money, 543 00:24:20,334 --> 00:24:23,171 is I support a woman's right to choose. 544 00:24:23,171 --> 00:24:24,797 -Thank you. 545 00:24:24,797 --> 00:24:26,340 -Thank you so much. -All right! 546 00:24:26,340 --> 00:24:28,217 -All right! -I-I would also like to say 547 00:24:28,217 --> 00:24:31,345 it is a choice I would never make personally. 548 00:24:38,769 --> 00:24:40,521 I-I said that. 549 00:24:40,521 --> 00:24:42,356 No, I really said that in the contest. 550 00:24:42,356 --> 00:24:44,108 And then, uh-- and then, six years later, 551 00:24:44,108 --> 00:24:46,485 I got pregnant, so that was confusing. 552 00:24:47,653 --> 00:24:49,655 I didn't know what to do. 553 00:24:49,655 --> 00:24:52,700 I was 21. I just graduated college. 554 00:24:52,700 --> 00:24:54,869 I, um... I was back in Wenatchee, 555 00:24:54,869 --> 00:24:56,245 living in my parents' basement. 556 00:24:56,245 --> 00:24:58,414 I was helping my dad paint houses for the summer, 557 00:24:58,414 --> 00:25:00,625 because I was saving up money to move to Siberia 558 00:25:00,625 --> 00:25:03,961 to teach English for one million rubles a month. 559 00:25:03,961 --> 00:25:05,963 I decided to take a pregnancy test. 560 00:25:05,963 --> 00:25:07,381 I was just a couple days late on my period, 561 00:25:07,381 --> 00:25:08,633 and I was just-- I was praying 562 00:25:08,633 --> 00:25:10,551 it was one of those hysterical pregnancies 563 00:25:10,551 --> 00:25:11,761 like ladies in soap operas get. 564 00:25:11,761 --> 00:25:13,512 But I could not go to Planned Parenthood 565 00:25:13,512 --> 00:25:15,681 because my mom's best friend worked there, 566 00:25:15,681 --> 00:25:17,308 and I couldn't go to a drugstore 567 00:25:17,308 --> 00:25:20,061 because someone might see me and tell my parents. 568 00:25:20,061 --> 00:25:22,396 So I looked in the phone book. I found this listing. 569 00:25:22,396 --> 00:25:25,024 It said, "Free Pregnancy Testing. Quick. Confidential." 570 00:25:25,024 --> 00:25:26,359 Sir, I'm gonna keep going. 571 00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:27,526 -I went downtown. 572 00:25:27,526 --> 00:25:28,945 I found this unmarked building. 573 00:25:28,945 --> 00:25:30,279 I snuck in the back door. 574 00:25:30,279 --> 00:25:32,073 And the first thing I saw when I walked inside 575 00:25:32,073 --> 00:25:35,159 is that the walls were covered with pictures of fetuses. 576 00:25:37,912 --> 00:25:39,830 There was this huge poster that said, 577 00:25:39,830 --> 00:25:41,415 "Adoption is a beautiful choice," 578 00:25:41,415 --> 00:25:44,252 and then this sign that said, "Birthright." 579 00:25:44,252 --> 00:25:46,254 I panicked. I, uh... 580 00:25:46,254 --> 00:25:48,005 I wanted to run out the back door. 581 00:25:48,005 --> 00:25:50,424 But in case you can't tell by this point in the show, 582 00:25:50,424 --> 00:25:54,095 I was raised to be just psychotically polite. 583 00:25:59,183 --> 00:26:01,686 So, when Marcy, the receptionist, said, 584 00:26:01,686 --> 00:26:03,521 "We're so glad you're here," 585 00:26:03,521 --> 00:26:06,148 I just smiled and said, "Me, too!" 586 00:26:06,148 --> 00:26:08,901 And then she and I proceeded to have, like... 587 00:26:08,901 --> 00:26:11,654 -like, a nice-off. 588 00:26:11,654 --> 00:26:13,072 She took my hand. 589 00:26:13,072 --> 00:26:14,699 She said, "Heidi, if you are pregnant, 590 00:26:14,699 --> 00:26:16,284 will this be good news or bad news?" 591 00:26:16,284 --> 00:26:20,121 And, uh, I started to cry, loudly, but, 592 00:26:20,121 --> 00:26:22,456 because I didn't want to let Marcy down, 593 00:26:22,456 --> 00:26:25,793 I said... : "Good. Really good news!" 594 00:26:25,793 --> 00:26:27,295 And she said, "Yay!"-- 595 00:26:27,295 --> 00:26:28,921 even though she must have known I was lying-- 596 00:26:28,921 --> 00:26:30,256 and then she hugged me. 597 00:26:30,256 --> 00:26:33,175 She hugged me, and I sobbed into her shoulder. 598 00:26:33,175 --> 00:26:34,844 And, uh... 599 00:26:34,844 --> 00:26:37,680 And she smelled so good. 600 00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,684 She smelled just like my Grandma Betty, like... 601 00:26:41,684 --> 00:26:43,352 like White Shoulders perfume 602 00:26:43,352 --> 00:26:46,022 that has been left out in the sun way too long. 603 00:26:49,191 --> 00:26:53,195 Uh, you might remember my town is, uh, conservative. 604 00:26:53,195 --> 00:26:55,698 It, uh-- it was an abortion-free zone. 605 00:26:55,698 --> 00:26:56,949 You, uh-- you actually had to drive 606 00:26:56,949 --> 00:26:58,868 three hours west to Seattle, 607 00:26:58,868 --> 00:27:01,287 five hours east to Spokane to get an abortion. 608 00:27:01,287 --> 00:27:04,957 I decided I wanted to go eight hours south to Eugene, Oregon, 609 00:27:04,957 --> 00:27:06,959 because there is a clinic there 610 00:27:06,959 --> 00:27:08,961 called the Feminist Women's Health Collective, 611 00:27:08,961 --> 00:27:10,463 run by lesbians, 612 00:27:10,463 --> 00:27:12,882 which is clearly the safest possible place on the planet 613 00:27:12,882 --> 00:27:14,342 to get an abortion. 614 00:27:16,594 --> 00:27:19,430 And that is what I wanted. I wanted an abortion. 615 00:27:19,430 --> 00:27:21,182 I knew it was my right. 616 00:27:21,182 --> 00:27:23,893 I knew it was legal. 617 00:27:23,893 --> 00:27:24,977 I knew it had been legal 618 00:27:24,977 --> 00:27:27,104 for most of the history of this country. 619 00:27:27,104 --> 00:27:29,106 Actually, because I'd been able to go to college, 620 00:27:29,106 --> 00:27:31,108 I knew abortion had only become a crime 621 00:27:31,108 --> 00:27:32,777 in the late 19th century, 622 00:27:32,777 --> 00:27:35,696 right before the government started forcibly sterilizing 623 00:27:35,696 --> 00:27:37,114 women of color and indigenous women. 624 00:27:37,114 --> 00:27:40,868 And I knew that when abortion became illegal, 625 00:27:40,868 --> 00:27:43,871 it didn't become rare; it only became deadly. 626 00:27:43,871 --> 00:27:45,706 I knew that, uh... 627 00:27:45,706 --> 00:27:47,583 that Gloria Steinem had had an abortion 628 00:27:47,583 --> 00:27:50,419 and Billie Jean King and Susan Sontag. 629 00:27:50,419 --> 00:27:53,506 I, uh... I-I knew that Penny from Dirty Dancing 630 00:27:53,506 --> 00:27:55,049 had had an abortion. 631 00:27:57,218 --> 00:28:00,054 And I knew that when Jennifer Grey asked her dad, 632 00:28:00,054 --> 00:28:02,973 Jerry Orbach, to save Penny's life 633 00:28:02,973 --> 00:28:04,600 after her back-alley abortion almost killed her, 634 00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:06,769 I knew she was asking a lot of her father, 635 00:28:06,769 --> 00:28:08,354 because this was the 1960s 636 00:28:08,354 --> 00:28:09,939 and Jerry Orbach could have been arrested 637 00:28:09,939 --> 00:28:11,524 for getting anywhere near an abortion. 638 00:28:11,524 --> 00:28:13,943 And I knew that this is how we were supposed to understand 639 00:28:13,943 --> 00:28:16,445 that Jerry Orbach was a good man 640 00:28:16,445 --> 00:28:18,656 and also how we knew that Jennifer Grey 641 00:28:18,656 --> 00:28:21,492 and Patrick Swayze's love was real! 642 00:28:27,289 --> 00:28:29,500 That is everything that was going through my head 643 00:28:29,500 --> 00:28:31,335 while Marcy and I were hugging. 644 00:28:32,670 --> 00:28:34,630 I just-- I didn't say any of that to her though. 645 00:28:34,630 --> 00:28:36,257 I didn't say anything. I, uh... 646 00:28:36,257 --> 00:28:38,342 She gave me my positive pregnancy test. 647 00:28:38,342 --> 00:28:41,303 I said, uh, "Thank you." 648 00:28:41,303 --> 00:28:43,722 And then I headed for the door. She followed me. 649 00:28:43,722 --> 00:28:45,891 She gave me this pamphlet that explained, 650 00:28:45,891 --> 00:28:47,476 if I had an abortion, 651 00:28:47,476 --> 00:28:49,979 I would probably become suicidal and barren 652 00:28:49,979 --> 00:28:51,480 and maybe go to hell. 653 00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:53,190 And then she tucked in the tag at the back of my dress 654 00:28:53,190 --> 00:28:55,443 and she said, "I can't help myself. 655 00:28:55,443 --> 00:28:57,945 Always a mother." 656 00:28:59,905 --> 00:29:01,949 I, uh... I also-- 657 00:29:01,949 --> 00:29:06,370 I didn't tell... my mother what I was really doing. 658 00:29:06,370 --> 00:29:07,872 I have no idea why. 659 00:29:07,872 --> 00:29:10,374 I didn't tell her I was pregnant. 660 00:29:10,374 --> 00:29:12,460 Which is weird, because my mom's a feminist. 661 00:29:12,460 --> 00:29:14,462 She's pro-choice. 662 00:29:14,462 --> 00:29:16,297 She, uh, she marched for the Equal Rights Amendment 663 00:29:16,297 --> 00:29:18,048 and cried when it didn't pass. 664 00:29:18,048 --> 00:29:19,800 She even had, uh, like, one of those, like, 665 00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:22,803 white-lady feminist theater troupes that does... 666 00:29:22,803 --> 00:29:26,182 I don't know, like, puppet shows of "The Yellow Wallpaper." 667 00:29:26,182 --> 00:29:27,850 -Uh... 668 00:29:27,850 --> 00:29:29,935 But, for some reason, I just-- I couldn't tell her. 669 00:29:29,935 --> 00:29:32,146 In fact, I didn't tell anyone for 25 years, 670 00:29:32,146 --> 00:29:33,898 until I started performing this show. 671 00:29:33,898 --> 00:29:35,816 And then all my friends came to the show 672 00:29:35,816 --> 00:29:37,359 and told me about their abortions 673 00:29:37,359 --> 00:29:38,986 and their mothers came to the show 674 00:29:38,986 --> 00:29:40,988 and told me about their abortions, which, uh-- 675 00:29:40,988 --> 00:29:44,408 which were so much more harrowing. 676 00:29:47,244 --> 00:29:48,871 Actually, I told one other person. 677 00:29:48,871 --> 00:29:51,749 I-I told the guy. I-I told Jean. 678 00:29:51,749 --> 00:29:53,751 Jean was so chivalrous. 679 00:29:53,751 --> 00:29:55,336 He offered to pay. 680 00:29:55,336 --> 00:29:56,962 Uh, for half of it. 681 00:29:56,962 --> 00:29:58,797 -And, uh... 682 00:29:58,797 --> 00:30:01,884 he even suggested that we drive down Highway 101 683 00:30:01,884 --> 00:30:03,511 and camp on the beaches, make some kind of-- 684 00:30:03,511 --> 00:30:05,262 kind of vacation out of it. 685 00:30:05,262 --> 00:30:07,264 -Yeah, ew, right? Thank you. 686 00:30:07,264 --> 00:30:08,516 -Thank you! 687 00:30:08,516 --> 00:30:09,975 That is how I felt! 688 00:30:09,975 --> 00:30:12,937 Look, I just... I want to say, I don't have to say this, 689 00:30:12,937 --> 00:30:15,272 but I was on birth control when I got pregnant. 690 00:30:15,272 --> 00:30:18,150 I had been on the pill since I was 15 years old. 691 00:30:18,150 --> 00:30:20,236 My friend Renee and I snuck in the back door 692 00:30:20,236 --> 00:30:22,947 of Planned Parenthood before my mom's friend worked there. 693 00:30:22,947 --> 00:30:24,865 Neither of us was having sex yet, but we just... 694 00:30:24,865 --> 00:30:27,618 you know, we wanted to be on birth control just in case. 695 00:30:27,618 --> 00:30:30,663 Just in case... we were in a hot tub, 696 00:30:30,663 --> 00:30:32,957 and-and the sperm swam up and attacked us. 697 00:30:39,004 --> 00:30:41,924 Or, you know, in case of a real attack. 698 00:30:41,924 --> 00:30:44,093 I remember it was such a nice day. 699 00:30:44,093 --> 00:30:45,886 We, uh, we went to McDonald's, 700 00:30:45,886 --> 00:30:47,888 and we took our first pills with chocolate shakes, 701 00:30:47,888 --> 00:30:51,350 and I could kind of feel it working right away, you know? 702 00:30:51,350 --> 00:30:54,103 -Like, I felt very womanly. 703 00:30:54,103 --> 00:30:56,480 Like, something kind of came alive inside of me. 704 00:31:01,652 --> 00:31:03,487 What I didn't know at the time 705 00:31:03,487 --> 00:31:05,656 is that birth control had only been legal 706 00:31:05,656 --> 00:31:08,367 for all women in this country for 15 years. 707 00:31:08,367 --> 00:31:10,786 I mean, I was 15, so I thought it had been legal 708 00:31:10,786 --> 00:31:12,955 since, like, the dawn of time, but, no, no. 709 00:31:12,955 --> 00:31:16,625 In 1965, this incredible woman, Estelle Griswold, 710 00:31:16,625 --> 00:31:19,295 got herself arrested for giving out birth control 711 00:31:19,295 --> 00:31:21,755 to poor women at her Connecticut Planned Parenthood. 712 00:31:21,755 --> 00:31:23,757 She faced a year in prison, 713 00:31:23,757 --> 00:31:27,177 took her case all the way to the Supreme Court, and this... 714 00:31:27,177 --> 00:31:29,471 this is when William O. Douglas brought out 715 00:31:29,471 --> 00:31:31,640 his beautiful penumbra metaphor. 716 00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,560 This is when he said, "One thing our Constitution 717 00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:37,730 "surely guarantees is the right to privacy, 718 00:31:37,730 --> 00:31:40,649 "and that this allows a woman to put in an IUD 719 00:31:40,649 --> 00:31:42,526 "as long as she is married and as long 720 00:31:42,526 --> 00:31:45,029 as her husband says that it is okay." 721 00:31:48,657 --> 00:31:51,535 This was a such a scary moment for William O. Douglas. 722 00:31:51,535 --> 00:31:55,164 No, he-he really put himself on the line for us. 723 00:31:55,164 --> 00:31:59,043 Because the truth is nobody understands the Ninth Amendment. 724 00:31:59,043 --> 00:32:02,296 -Nobody, except me at 15. 725 00:32:02,296 --> 00:32:03,714 Justice Scalia said 726 00:32:03,714 --> 00:32:05,507 he didn't even remember studying it law school. 727 00:32:05,507 --> 00:32:07,801 Scalia said he couldn't tell you what the Ninth Amendment meant 728 00:32:07,801 --> 00:32:10,763 if his life depended on it. 729 00:32:10,763 --> 00:32:12,890 Which I guess his didn't! 730 00:32:20,689 --> 00:32:23,692 So they had to dig up this amendment nobody uses, 731 00:32:23,692 --> 00:32:25,986 nobody understands, because there just was no other way 732 00:32:25,986 --> 00:32:28,739 to deal with a female body, because our bodies, 733 00:32:28,739 --> 00:32:30,449 our bodies had just been left out 734 00:32:30,449 --> 00:32:32,117 of this document from the beginning. 735 00:32:32,117 --> 00:32:33,661 They were just like, "We don't... we don't know 736 00:32:33,661 --> 00:32:35,621 what to do with this kind of a body." 737 00:32:37,539 --> 00:32:40,084 That is my founders impression. Thank you. 738 00:32:41,418 --> 00:32:43,754 So they dug up this amendment nobody uses, 739 00:32:43,754 --> 00:32:46,090 because they wanted to make birth control legal. 740 00:32:46,090 --> 00:32:48,217 They wanted to, because, well, because I found out 741 00:32:48,217 --> 00:32:50,010 that William O. Douglas-- 742 00:32:50,010 --> 00:32:52,721 who was my hero when I was 15 years old-- 743 00:32:52,721 --> 00:32:54,723 Justice William O. Douglas was 67, 744 00:32:54,723 --> 00:32:58,769 and he was having an affair with a 22-year-old college student. 745 00:32:58,769 --> 00:33:01,939 And... and it turns out that three other justices 746 00:33:01,939 --> 00:33:04,274 may have been having sex with young women, as well. 747 00:33:04,274 --> 00:33:06,193 So, I'm thinking... Right? 748 00:33:06,193 --> 00:33:07,778 They-they needed to find a way 749 00:33:07,778 --> 00:33:09,822 to get the birth control flowing! 750 00:33:09,822 --> 00:33:11,573 -I would just... 751 00:33:11,573 --> 00:33:13,158 I would love to play you a little snippet 752 00:33:13,158 --> 00:33:15,077 of the actual Supreme Court argument, 753 00:33:15,077 --> 00:33:16,662 because it is trenchant. 754 00:33:16,662 --> 00:33:18,080 Uh, it's fascinating. 755 00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:21,208 Oh, it's... it's 1965. 756 00:33:21,208 --> 00:33:23,085 There will not be a woman on this court 757 00:33:23,085 --> 00:33:27,131 until Sandra Day O'Connor arrives in 1981. 758 00:33:27,131 --> 00:33:30,759 Here are nine men deciding the fate of birth control, 759 00:33:30,759 --> 00:33:32,970 four of whom are cheating on their wives. 760 00:33:32,970 --> 00:33:34,763 Now that I've interrupted you, 761 00:33:34,763 --> 00:33:37,015 uh, you've told us that in Connecticut 762 00:33:37,015 --> 00:33:40,602 the sale of, uh, these devices is, uh, not molested 763 00:33:40,602 --> 00:33:44,231 because they're sold for the prevention of disease. 764 00:33:44,231 --> 00:33:46,483 Is this, uh, true about 765 00:33:46,483 --> 00:33:48,902 all of these devices that are covered, uh, 766 00:33:48,902 --> 00:33:53,073 that each of them has the potential dual function 767 00:33:53,073 --> 00:33:55,200 of acting in a contraceptive capacity 768 00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,202 and as a prevention of disease? 769 00:33:57,202 --> 00:33:58,871 It's probably only true 770 00:33:58,871 --> 00:34:01,415 with respect to some, but some get by 771 00:34:01,415 --> 00:34:06,879 under the term "feminine hygiene," and, uh, others, uh... 772 00:34:06,879 --> 00:34:09,965 Uh... 773 00:34:09,965 --> 00:34:11,967 -uh, I-I... 774 00:34:11,967 --> 00:34:14,386 I just don't know about, uh, 775 00:34:14,386 --> 00:34:16,680 but, uh... uh... 776 00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:20,225 They are... they are, uh, all sold 777 00:34:20,225 --> 00:34:23,812 in Connecticut, uh, drugstores on one theory or another. 778 00:34:23,812 --> 00:34:26,398 Is there anything in the record to... 779 00:34:26,398 --> 00:34:28,776 to indicate, uh, 780 00:34:28,776 --> 00:34:30,694 -uh, 781 00:34:30,694 --> 00:34:33,864 the, uh, stem of the birth rate in Connecticut 782 00:34:33,864 --> 00:34:37,075 vis-à-vis the states that don't have such laws? 783 00:34:42,498 --> 00:34:44,583 It's, like, four hours of that. 784 00:34:47,503 --> 00:34:49,671 Birth control became legal 785 00:34:49,671 --> 00:34:53,175 for single women in this country in 1972, 786 00:34:53,175 --> 00:34:56,136 uh, which is the year after my mom got pregnant with me. 787 00:34:56,136 --> 00:34:58,972 This is what I was thinking about when my mom drove me 788 00:34:58,972 --> 00:35:02,142 to Seattle to meet Jean to go down for an abortion. 789 00:35:02,142 --> 00:35:03,685 I was thinking about the fact 790 00:35:03,685 --> 00:35:05,395 that she was my age when she had me, 791 00:35:05,395 --> 00:35:07,523 that she wanted to become an actor and a writer 792 00:35:07,523 --> 00:35:09,608 and move to New York City, which is, of course, 793 00:35:09,608 --> 00:35:12,236 what I'm gonna do, but I don't know that yet. 794 00:35:12,236 --> 00:35:13,821 And as soon as I have that thought, 795 00:35:13,821 --> 00:35:15,906 I'm overcome by this horrible wave of nausea. 796 00:35:15,906 --> 00:35:18,534 I ask her to pull the car over, I open the door, 797 00:35:18,534 --> 00:35:20,285 I puke on the side of the road, 798 00:35:20,285 --> 00:35:23,455 and when I sit back up, I can tell that she knows. 799 00:35:23,455 --> 00:35:28,919 And I'm just... I'm waiting for her to tell me that it's okay, 800 00:35:28,919 --> 00:35:32,422 that, uh, that it's my body, 801 00:35:32,422 --> 00:35:34,258 and like she taught me, this is my decision. 802 00:35:34,258 --> 00:35:38,428 But when I look at my mom, she's got this wild look in her eyes. 803 00:35:38,428 --> 00:35:40,305 And then she starts hyperventilating. 804 00:35:40,305 --> 00:35:42,391 She's basically having some kind of panic attack. 805 00:35:42,391 --> 00:35:46,478 And all of a sudden, she shouts, "You better not be pregnant!" 806 00:35:46,478 --> 00:35:49,106 And I shout, "I'm not pregnant!" 807 00:35:49,106 --> 00:35:51,358 -Clause 4. 808 00:35:54,027 --> 00:35:56,822 "No state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction 809 00:35:56,822 --> 00:35:59,199 the equal protection of the laws." 810 00:35:59,199 --> 00:36:01,910 Clause 4 is even more miraculous than Clause 3. 811 00:36:01,910 --> 00:36:04,746 It is the Equal Protection Clause. 812 00:36:04,746 --> 00:36:07,082 It ensures that we cannot be discriminated against 813 00:36:07,082 --> 00:36:10,794 on the basis of race, sex, religion, 814 00:36:10,794 --> 00:36:13,547 immigration status. 815 00:36:13,547 --> 00:36:17,426 It, uh, it actually uses the word "person," not "citizen," 816 00:36:17,426 --> 00:36:20,095 which means if you are an undocumented immigrant, 817 00:36:20,095 --> 00:36:22,347 you must be given all the protections of Clause 3, 818 00:36:22,347 --> 00:36:24,016 the Due Process Clause. 819 00:36:24,016 --> 00:36:26,560 You cannot be locked up without a fair trial. 820 00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:31,106 You cannot have anything or-or anyone seized from you. 821 00:36:40,073 --> 00:36:42,075 I, uh... 822 00:36:48,332 --> 00:36:50,459 I just... I've been talking about this, uh... 823 00:36:50,459 --> 00:36:52,920 this clause for such a long time, over ten years, 824 00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:56,298 and, uh, I find it harder and harder 825 00:36:56,298 --> 00:36:58,508 to talk about every day. 826 00:36:58,508 --> 00:37:00,177 Uh, although to be honest, 827 00:37:00,177 --> 00:37:02,638 it wasn't that easy ten years ago, either. 828 00:37:05,807 --> 00:37:08,769 Uh, I also... I do have, um... 829 00:37:10,812 --> 00:37:13,815 I have a personal connection to the Equal Protection Clause. 830 00:37:13,815 --> 00:37:16,109 I just... I never would have spoken about it at 15. 831 00:37:16,109 --> 00:37:18,403 I, uh... I didn't tell anyone. 832 00:37:18,403 --> 00:37:21,448 And whenever I get to this part, I... 833 00:37:23,033 --> 00:37:26,954 I just... I have this desire to protect my 15-year-old self 834 00:37:26,954 --> 00:37:28,956 from speaking about it. 835 00:37:36,463 --> 00:37:40,968 Uh... actually, you know what? I'm gonna, um... 836 00:37:40,968 --> 00:37:43,971 I'm gonna just talk about the Equal Protection Clause, 837 00:37:43,971 --> 00:37:46,723 uh, as myself, now. I'm gonna... I'm... 838 00:37:46,723 --> 00:37:49,726 In fact, I'm just... I'm gonna be myself now all the time now. 839 00:37:49,726 --> 00:37:51,728 -So... 840 00:37:53,188 --> 00:37:58,902 I'm gonna be, uh, an adult woman in my very late 40s. 841 00:37:58,902 --> 00:38:01,405 -Hi. 842 00:38:03,490 --> 00:38:06,326 Also, my face just fucking hurts from smiling like that. 843 00:38:14,710 --> 00:38:16,753 I'm sorry, sir. 844 00:38:16,753 --> 00:38:19,589 I actually have no idea what your purpose is here anymore. 845 00:38:23,010 --> 00:38:25,012 Uh... 846 00:38:27,389 --> 00:38:29,057 The clause is miraculous. 847 00:38:29,057 --> 00:38:31,727 It, uh... it really is. 848 00:38:31,727 --> 00:38:34,646 People have used it to do so much good in this country. 849 00:38:34,646 --> 00:38:38,191 Uh, the Equal Protection Clause was used... 850 00:38:38,191 --> 00:38:42,863 It was actually the heart of the civil rights movement. 851 00:38:42,863 --> 00:38:46,199 Decades after this contest, uh, it will be used, 852 00:38:46,199 --> 00:38:48,035 along with the Due Process Clause, 853 00:38:48,035 --> 00:38:49,995 to make marriage equality possible. 854 00:38:49,995 --> 00:38:52,039 This clause was used to win all sorts of rights 855 00:38:52,039 --> 00:38:55,000 for working women, including the right to equal pay, 856 00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:57,586 the right to be free from sexual harassment. 857 00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:00,714 -Uh... 858 00:39:00,714 --> 00:39:02,924 A few years before this contest in 1983, 859 00:39:02,924 --> 00:39:05,469 lawyers tried to use this clause to address the problem 860 00:39:05,469 --> 00:39:07,888 of physical and sexual violence toward women, 861 00:39:07,888 --> 00:39:10,140 with the idea that you can't possibly 862 00:39:10,140 --> 00:39:12,184 be equal in this country if you are subject 863 00:39:12,184 --> 00:39:14,936 to epidemic levels of violence. 864 00:39:14,936 --> 00:39:19,441 Uh, as you may already know, four women are murdered 865 00:39:19,441 --> 00:39:22,611 every day in this country by a male partner. 866 00:39:22,611 --> 00:39:24,446 It, uh, it was actually three women 867 00:39:24,446 --> 00:39:26,073 when I started performing a year ago. 868 00:39:26,073 --> 00:39:27,824 It's gone up. 869 00:39:27,824 --> 00:39:31,161 One in three American women are sexually assaulted 870 00:39:31,161 --> 00:39:33,538 during their lifetime. 871 00:39:33,538 --> 00:39:36,917 Uh... one in five-- 872 00:39:36,917 --> 00:39:38,919 I'm sorry, yes. 873 00:39:45,175 --> 00:39:48,970 Uh, one in three American women 874 00:39:48,970 --> 00:39:52,390 are sexually assaulted during their lifetime. 875 00:39:52,390 --> 00:39:56,770 One in five American women are raped during their lifetime. 876 00:39:56,770 --> 00:40:00,398 Uh, a study came out recently that said the United States 877 00:40:00,398 --> 00:40:02,192 was one of the ten most dangerous countries 878 00:40:02,192 --> 00:40:03,819 in the world for women. 879 00:40:03,819 --> 00:40:06,154 That's physical and sexual violence, 880 00:40:06,154 --> 00:40:09,533 sex trafficking, uh, lack of access to health care, 881 00:40:09,533 --> 00:40:12,369 lack of access to reproductive care, 882 00:40:12,369 --> 00:40:16,832 death in childbirth, uh, especially for Black women, 883 00:40:16,832 --> 00:40:18,834 gun violence. 884 00:40:20,710 --> 00:40:23,588 Uh, on a personal note, 885 00:40:23,588 --> 00:40:27,259 ten million American women live in violent households. 886 00:40:27,259 --> 00:40:30,387 My mom lived in a house like this. 887 00:40:30,387 --> 00:40:32,097 So did my Grandma Betty 888 00:40:32,097 --> 00:40:35,475 and, uh, probably my great-great-grandma Theresa, 889 00:40:35,475 --> 00:40:37,894 though, uh, I don't... I don't have any evidence for that 890 00:40:37,894 --> 00:40:40,605 except for maybe, maybe the fact that she died of melancholia 891 00:40:40,605 --> 00:40:43,316 at age 36. 892 00:40:43,316 --> 00:40:45,861 Uh, will you hand me my Grandma Betty index cards? 893 00:40:48,029 --> 00:40:50,323 I, uh, I just... I want to tell you a little bit 894 00:40:50,323 --> 00:40:52,868 about my Grandma Betty and the Equal Protection Clause. 895 00:40:52,868 --> 00:40:54,995 I actually... I know these stories very well. 896 00:40:54,995 --> 00:40:56,830 I prefer to read them. 897 00:40:56,830 --> 00:40:58,874 "My, uh... 898 00:40:58,874 --> 00:41:03,044 "my Grandma Betty married my grandpa when she was 19. 899 00:41:03,044 --> 00:41:06,173 "My grandpa was what we call in my family a good man, 900 00:41:06,173 --> 00:41:09,176 "which meant that he didn't beat up his wife and kids. 901 00:41:09,176 --> 00:41:11,428 "He was a six-foot-six logger 902 00:41:11,428 --> 00:41:13,763 "who built the one-bedroom house they lived in 903 00:41:13,763 --> 00:41:15,765 "with his bare hands. 904 00:41:17,350 --> 00:41:19,519 "Legend has it that he chopped down the trees 905 00:41:19,519 --> 00:41:20,854 "to build this house, 906 00:41:20,854 --> 00:41:22,355 "and then he dragged the lumber up 907 00:41:22,355 --> 00:41:24,858 "from the base of Mount St. Helens on his back 908 00:41:24,858 --> 00:41:26,109 like a horse." 909 00:41:26,109 --> 00:41:28,195 I, uh, I actually have never understood 910 00:41:28,195 --> 00:41:30,780 that part of the story, because he had a truck. 911 00:41:34,993 --> 00:41:36,995 "Grandma Betty and her good husband 912 00:41:36,995 --> 00:41:39,873 "had two kids when my grandma got pregnant with my mom. 913 00:41:39,873 --> 00:41:41,917 "One day, she was feeling antsy. 914 00:41:41,917 --> 00:41:44,294 "She wanted to go to the Cowlitz County Fair. 915 00:41:44,294 --> 00:41:46,546 "My grandpa took an extra logging shift 916 00:41:46,546 --> 00:41:48,089 "to pay for the tickets. 917 00:41:48,089 --> 00:41:49,925 "He and his partner Ray were sawing 918 00:41:49,925 --> 00:41:52,344 "a 150-foot evergreen tree. 919 00:41:52,344 --> 00:41:54,596 "They misjudged the trajectory of the tree 920 00:41:54,596 --> 00:41:57,724 "and it fell on my grandpa, killing him. 921 00:41:57,724 --> 00:42:01,478 "My mom was born while my grandma was still grieving. 922 00:42:01,478 --> 00:42:04,147 "My widowed Grandma Betty supported her three kids 923 00:42:04,147 --> 00:42:06,900 "by working as a waitress at the local diner. 924 00:42:06,900 --> 00:42:11,154 "A man named Dick came in often. 925 00:42:11,154 --> 00:42:13,531 Dick was a barber. He was very good-looking." 926 00:42:13,531 --> 00:42:15,533 My grandma loved good-looking men. 927 00:42:15,533 --> 00:42:17,244 -As do I. 928 00:42:17,244 --> 00:42:20,205 "My, uh, my Grandma Betty married Dick pretty quickly. 929 00:42:20,205 --> 00:42:23,208 "Pretty quickly, he started to beat her up. 930 00:42:23,208 --> 00:42:24,542 He beat up her kids." 931 00:42:24,542 --> 00:42:25,961 They had three more kids together. 932 00:42:25,961 --> 00:42:27,963 He beat them up, too. 933 00:42:29,256 --> 00:42:33,468 "When my mom's sister turned 16, my grandma's husband raped her. 934 00:42:33,468 --> 00:42:36,805 "My aunt got pregnant. She went away to have the baby. 935 00:42:36,805 --> 00:42:39,683 "He raped her again. She went away again. 936 00:42:39,683 --> 00:42:42,852 "She came back home after giving birth to a second child 937 00:42:42,852 --> 00:42:45,397 and graduated at the top of her class." 938 00:42:45,397 --> 00:42:47,274 I, uh, I just want to say, 939 00:42:47,274 --> 00:42:49,901 all of these kids grew up to be pretty happy. 940 00:42:49,901 --> 00:42:51,653 They did, miraculously. 941 00:42:51,653 --> 00:42:53,863 They, uh, they all have families that they love 942 00:42:53,863 --> 00:42:58,451 and jobs-jobs that, like most of us, they kind of like. 943 00:42:58,451 --> 00:43:00,620 Uh, none of them perpetuated the abuse 944 00:43:00,620 --> 00:43:02,038 that had been inflicted on them. 945 00:43:02,038 --> 00:43:03,999 I realize it is not great storytelling 946 00:43:03,999 --> 00:43:06,126 to skip to the end like this, but I actually don't want you 947 00:43:06,126 --> 00:43:08,461 to have to worry about them for the rest of the play. 948 00:43:08,461 --> 00:43:10,171 -They are okay. 949 00:43:10,171 --> 00:43:12,215 Like so many people in this country 950 00:43:12,215 --> 00:43:17,512 who go through similar things, uh, they are mostly okay. 951 00:43:17,512 --> 00:43:22,183 I, uh... I was so pissed off at my mom 952 00:43:22,183 --> 00:43:24,019 when she told me that story. 953 00:43:24,019 --> 00:43:27,105 She, uh, she told me when I was 15, and I remember, 954 00:43:27,105 --> 00:43:28,898 I was just, I was furious with her 955 00:43:28,898 --> 00:43:31,359 because I was a deeply heterosexual 15-year-old girl. 956 00:43:31,359 --> 00:43:34,654 I just, I really wanted to make out with boys all the time. 957 00:43:34,654 --> 00:43:37,115 I-I did not want to think that they could be violent 958 00:43:37,115 --> 00:43:38,533 or they could be rapists. 959 00:43:38,533 --> 00:43:40,035 Uh, I mean, they could be troubled. 960 00:43:40,035 --> 00:43:42,537 -I loved it when they were troubled. - 961 00:43:42,537 --> 00:43:45,290 They could be, like-like, a down-and-out dance instructor 962 00:43:45,290 --> 00:43:49,210 -at a Catskills resort. 963 00:43:49,210 --> 00:43:52,422 But, uh, the thing I remember saying to my mom is, 964 00:43:52,422 --> 00:43:56,051 "Why didn't Grandma Betty just take all of you and run away?" 965 00:43:56,051 --> 00:43:58,011 And, uh, my mom had no answer for me. 966 00:43:58,011 --> 00:43:59,888 She went in her room, she shut the door, 967 00:43:59,888 --> 00:44:01,639 she wouldn't come out. 968 00:44:01,639 --> 00:44:06,311 Uh, but my dad took me aside and he explained, um, 969 00:44:06,311 --> 00:44:10,065 that Grandma Betty couldn't run away because she was sick, 970 00:44:10,065 --> 00:44:12,192 because she had this thing that women get 971 00:44:12,192 --> 00:44:14,736 called "battered woman syndrome." 972 00:44:14,736 --> 00:44:16,946 Which, uh-- I remembered I was so confused by that. 973 00:44:16,946 --> 00:44:18,865 Like, "Oh, no, how do you catch that?" 974 00:44:18,865 --> 00:44:21,743 And, uh, also, if you ever met my Grandma Betty, 975 00:44:21,743 --> 00:44:24,621 you would know this was an absurd way to describe her. 976 00:44:24,621 --> 00:44:27,040 She, uh, she was almost six feet tall. 977 00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:30,293 She had these gigantic muscles, this wild black hair. 978 00:44:30,293 --> 00:44:32,212 Beautiful. 979 00:44:32,212 --> 00:44:36,633 In, uh, in addition to waitress, her other job was log runner. 980 00:44:36,633 --> 00:44:38,635 That is where you stand on a bunch of logs 981 00:44:38,635 --> 00:44:41,679 in a raging river, and then you take this giant stick, 982 00:44:41,679 --> 00:44:43,807 and all day long, you just, you just push the logs 983 00:44:43,807 --> 00:44:46,184 down the river till they... 984 00:44:46,184 --> 00:44:48,728 Actually, I don't know what happens to the logs. 985 00:44:53,108 --> 00:44:54,526 This is... 986 00:44:54,526 --> 00:44:57,946 This is my favorite thing to do in the whole show. 987 00:44:59,948 --> 00:45:04,536 Also, he can't stop me 'cause I didn't write anything for him. 988 00:45:07,622 --> 00:45:10,917 Not my grandma's dream job, by the way, log runner. 989 00:45:10,917 --> 00:45:12,585 What she wanted to be from the time 990 00:45:12,585 --> 00:45:14,671 she was a little girl was a painter. 991 00:45:14,671 --> 00:45:17,715 And she actually taught herself to paint by copying Picasso, 992 00:45:17,715 --> 00:45:20,301 who was her favorite, so her little one-bedroom house 993 00:45:20,301 --> 00:45:22,345 was filled with all of these, just, 994 00:45:22,345 --> 00:45:24,973 shitty-looking Picasso reproductions. 995 00:45:24,973 --> 00:45:26,307 And when I was a little girl, 996 00:45:26,307 --> 00:45:28,268 I thought they were her paintings. 997 00:45:28,268 --> 00:45:30,895 I think I was in high school before I realized that Picasso, 998 00:45:30,895 --> 00:45:35,108 and not my Grandma Betty, had invented The Weeping Woman. 999 00:45:36,151 --> 00:45:38,278 I, uh, whenever I talk about the things 1000 00:45:38,278 --> 00:45:41,322 that the women in my family wanted to be, all this, um... 1001 00:45:41,322 --> 00:45:43,658 all this crazy stuff happens in my body. 1002 00:45:43,658 --> 00:45:47,454 Like, uh, I've had this pain in my back for, like, a year, 1003 00:45:47,454 --> 00:45:50,665 and, uh, my throat gets really tight. 1004 00:45:50,665 --> 00:45:54,586 Like, I can't get my voice out, and I, uh... 1005 00:45:56,588 --> 00:46:01,259 I, uh, I have this painting of my grandma's up in my house. 1006 00:46:01,259 --> 00:46:04,053 And I think, I think maybe she was a good painter; 1007 00:46:04,053 --> 00:46:08,224 she just, she never painted anything that was hers. 1008 00:46:14,063 --> 00:46:17,984 It's funny, actually, Jean and I went to see my Grandma Betty 1009 00:46:17,984 --> 00:46:19,569 on the way to get my abortion. 1010 00:46:19,569 --> 00:46:21,946 And I remember I wanted to tell her what I was doing 1011 00:46:21,946 --> 00:46:24,491 'cause I thought she might be happy for me. 1012 00:46:24,491 --> 00:46:27,035 My, uh, my Great-Grandma Breckyn had 16 children. 1013 00:46:27,035 --> 00:46:29,037 My Grandma Betty had six children 1014 00:46:29,037 --> 00:46:30,872 and a violent husband. 1015 00:46:30,872 --> 00:46:32,957 I just, I thought she might be excited that I was 1016 00:46:32,957 --> 00:46:35,084 getting to do something different with my life. 1017 00:46:35,084 --> 00:46:38,671 But, uh, after the way my mom reacted, I just... 1018 00:46:38,671 --> 00:46:40,632 I remember I almost told her. 1019 00:46:40,632 --> 00:46:41,925 She, uh, she made these 1020 00:46:41,925 --> 00:46:43,259 beautiful popovers for breakfast. 1021 00:46:43,259 --> 00:46:45,220 I sat down at the table and I almost said, 1022 00:46:45,220 --> 00:46:47,430 "Grandma Betty, I'm pregnant." 1023 00:46:47,430 --> 00:46:53,269 And instead, I said, "Grandma Betty, I miss George." 1024 00:46:53,269 --> 00:46:55,271 Which is-- I actually have no idea why I said that. 1025 00:46:55,271 --> 00:46:57,482 George was this sock monkey that she sewed for me 1026 00:46:57,482 --> 00:46:59,150 -when I was three years old. 1027 00:46:59,150 --> 00:47:01,069 I loved this sock monkey to death. 1028 00:47:01,069 --> 00:47:02,862 I mean, I murdered him with my love. 1029 00:47:02,862 --> 00:47:04,989 He was missing an eye; he was missing a tail. 1030 00:47:04,989 --> 00:47:06,824 Eventually, like, I got a little shoebox 1031 00:47:06,824 --> 00:47:08,368 and made a monkey coffin for him. 1032 00:47:08,368 --> 00:47:10,870 And I remember telling my Grandma Betty that I wished 1033 00:47:10,870 --> 00:47:13,873 that I could take George the sock monkey with me to Siberia. 1034 00:47:13,873 --> 00:47:15,291 And my grandma just went, "Mm!" 1035 00:47:15,291 --> 00:47:16,584 'cause she was very unsentimental. 1036 00:47:16,584 --> 00:47:20,338 But the next Christmas, she sewed me 1037 00:47:20,338 --> 00:47:23,007 a brand-new sock monkey and she sent him 1038 00:47:23,007 --> 00:47:26,636 all the way to Russia, and I named this new sock monkey 1039 00:47:26,636 --> 00:47:29,055 -George the Second. 1040 00:47:29,055 --> 00:47:31,891 And then when I turned 40, I, uh, I decided 1041 00:47:31,891 --> 00:47:34,602 George the Second was lonely and needed some kind of friend. 1042 00:47:34,602 --> 00:47:37,480 So I bought this tiny little red-and-white-striped monkey 1043 00:47:37,480 --> 00:47:41,192 that I named George the Second's Friend. 1044 00:47:41,192 --> 00:47:43,861 And to this day... 1045 00:47:43,861 --> 00:47:45,863 I am married. 1046 00:47:47,448 --> 00:47:49,701 To this day, George the Second's Friend 1047 00:47:49,701 --> 00:47:51,953 is the most important person in my life. 1048 00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:56,499 I bet you're wondering how any of this relates 1049 00:47:56,499 --> 00:47:58,334 to the Equal Protection Clause. 1050 00:48:00,211 --> 00:48:02,213 In spite of how it feels, 1051 00:48:02,213 --> 00:48:03,715 and apparently what some people think, 1052 00:48:03,715 --> 00:48:06,092 this play is so carefully constructed. 1053 00:48:08,928 --> 00:48:12,473 -It's not my fault if you can't see the structures. - 1054 00:48:12,473 --> 00:48:15,518 In, uh, in 2005, 1055 00:48:15,518 --> 00:48:18,771 the Fourteenth Amendment was invoked 1056 00:48:18,771 --> 00:48:22,567 in a case called Castle Rock v. Gonzales. 1057 00:48:22,567 --> 00:48:26,821 "Jessica Gonzales had received a restraining order 1058 00:48:26,821 --> 00:48:29,157 "against her violent husband. 1059 00:48:29,157 --> 00:48:32,535 "A month later, he kidnapped their three daughters. 1060 00:48:32,535 --> 00:48:35,830 "Jessica, terrified, called the police seven times for help 1061 00:48:35,830 --> 00:48:38,666 "and went to the station twice in person 1062 00:48:38,666 --> 00:48:40,335 "to show them the restraining order 1063 00:48:40,335 --> 00:48:43,004 "and beg them to look for her daughters. 1064 00:48:43,004 --> 00:48:45,673 "The police not only refused to help her, 1065 00:48:45,673 --> 00:48:48,885 "they asked her to stop bothering them. 1066 00:48:49,927 --> 00:48:52,680 "By morning, Mr. Gonzales had legally purchased 1067 00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:54,891 "a semiautomatic weapon while their daughters 1068 00:48:54,891 --> 00:48:58,603 "waited in the car and then killed them. 1069 00:48:58,603 --> 00:49:01,230 "Jessica Gonzales-- 1070 00:49:01,230 --> 00:49:04,400 "who now goes by the name Lenahan-- 1071 00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:07,403 "Jessica Lenahan very bravely sued 1072 00:49:07,403 --> 00:49:09,322 "the Castle Rock Police Department 1073 00:49:09,322 --> 00:49:12,408 "for failing to show up to protect her and her kids. 1074 00:49:12,408 --> 00:49:15,328 "The state of Colorado had recently passed a law 1075 00:49:15,328 --> 00:49:17,372 "that required police to arrest a person 1076 00:49:17,372 --> 00:49:19,582 "who had violated a protective order. 1077 00:49:19,582 --> 00:49:23,670 "So Jessica sued and she won. 1078 00:49:23,670 --> 00:49:27,507 "Then the city appealed, took the case all the way 1079 00:49:27,507 --> 00:49:30,510 "to the Supreme Court, and this court, 1080 00:49:30,510 --> 00:49:33,221 "led by Antonin Scalia, 1081 00:49:33,221 --> 00:49:37,058 "overturned her case, killed the Colorado law, 1082 00:49:37,058 --> 00:49:39,185 "and gutted the Violence Against Women Act 1083 00:49:39,185 --> 00:49:41,229 "by ruling that the police did not have 1084 00:49:41,229 --> 00:49:43,231 "a constitutional obligation 1085 00:49:43,231 --> 00:49:47,151 to protect Jessica Lenahan or her daughters." 1086 00:49:47,151 --> 00:49:51,698 I, uh, I just, I listened to this case so many times, uh... 1087 00:49:53,616 --> 00:49:57,245 And the thing I notice when I hear the justices speak... 1088 00:49:59,247 --> 00:50:02,041 The thing I notice is that they spend very little time 1089 00:50:02,041 --> 00:50:05,545 talking about Jessica Lenahan as a human being. 1090 00:50:05,545 --> 00:50:08,047 They don't talk about her daughters-- 1091 00:50:08,047 --> 00:50:09,882 Rebecca, who was ten, 1092 00:50:09,882 --> 00:50:14,429 Katheryn, who was eight, Leslie, who was seven. 1093 00:50:14,429 --> 00:50:18,641 Instead, they spend a very long time 1094 00:50:18,641 --> 00:50:21,227 arguing about the word "shall." 1095 00:50:21,227 --> 00:50:24,230 As in the phrase "the police shall enforce 1096 00:50:24,230 --> 00:50:25,857 a restraining order." 1097 00:50:25,857 --> 00:50:27,900 And, look, I understand, even as a layperson, 1098 00:50:27,900 --> 00:50:30,278 that precise language is crucial in law. 1099 00:50:30,278 --> 00:50:33,239 But I find the balance of these two things... 1100 00:50:34,490 --> 00:50:37,785 At one point, Justice Scalia and Justice Breyer 1101 00:50:37,785 --> 00:50:40,079 got in this little argument about whether either of them 1102 00:50:40,079 --> 00:50:42,373 even understood what the word "shall" meant. 1103 00:50:42,373 --> 00:50:44,208 Uh, Terri, can you...? 1104 00:50:44,208 --> 00:50:46,669 Wait, wait, I-I thought we were 1105 00:50:46,669 --> 00:50:49,005 just talking here about state law 1106 00:50:49,005 --> 00:50:51,674 as to whether "shall" means "shall." 1107 00:50:51,674 --> 00:50:54,010 Do you think that that it's a matter of state law 1108 00:50:54,010 --> 00:50:57,096 whether-whether, if it does mean "shall," 1109 00:50:57,096 --> 00:50:59,682 it creates a property interest for purposes 1110 00:50:59,682 --> 00:51:01,768 of the federal, uh, Constitution? 1111 00:51:01,768 --> 00:51:03,352 No, Justice Scalia, I don't. 1112 00:51:03,352 --> 00:51:05,480 Suppose "shall" does mean "shall." 1113 00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,024 Fine. But you might have a statute that says, 1114 00:51:08,024 --> 00:51:10,651 "The fire department shall respond to fires. 1115 00:51:10,651 --> 00:51:15,364 "The police department shall respond to crimes. 1116 00:51:15,364 --> 00:51:21,496 The Army shall respond to, uh, uh, attacks." 1117 00:51:21,496 --> 00:51:25,124 Even the word "shall" doesn't necessarily mean... 1118 00:51:25,124 --> 00:51:29,462 Scalia ultimately decided that "shall" did not mean "must," 1119 00:51:29,462 --> 00:51:31,631 Which, uh, which I actually find very confusing 1120 00:51:31,631 --> 00:51:33,925 because Scalia was a devout Catholic. 1121 00:51:39,263 --> 00:51:42,308 Some constitutional scholars have called this decision 1122 00:51:42,308 --> 00:51:45,102 the death of the Fourteenth Amendment for women. 1123 00:51:45,102 --> 00:51:47,188 It basically shuts down the possibility to look 1124 00:51:47,188 --> 00:51:50,024 to our federal government, to our Constitution, 1125 00:51:50,024 --> 00:51:52,985 for protection from physical and sexual violence. 1126 00:51:52,985 --> 00:51:56,405 It's most devastating for women of color, 1127 00:51:56,405 --> 00:51:57,865 for trans women, 1128 00:51:57,865 --> 00:52:00,701 for nonbinary and binary trans folx, 1129 00:52:00,701 --> 00:52:02,870 for women with disabilities, for indigenous women-- 1130 00:52:02,870 --> 00:52:04,747 who suffer the most violence in this country. 1131 00:52:04,747 --> 00:52:06,749 And right now, it's terrible. 1132 00:52:06,749 --> 00:52:09,001 It's actually killing immigrant women 1133 00:52:09,001 --> 00:52:12,171 and their children who are fleeing violence. 1134 00:52:12,171 --> 00:52:13,965 I, uh, I just-- 1135 00:52:13,965 --> 00:52:18,177 I really, really wanted to understand why. 1136 00:52:18,177 --> 00:52:20,012 How they decided this. 1137 00:52:20,012 --> 00:52:22,598 I just... Maybe because of my own family history 1138 00:52:22,598 --> 00:52:24,016 of this kind of violence, 1139 00:52:24,016 --> 00:52:25,852 I just, I needed to make sense of it. 1140 00:52:25,852 --> 00:52:30,231 So, I talked to several constitutional scholars, 1141 00:52:30,231 --> 00:52:32,233 and this is what I learned. 1142 00:52:34,443 --> 00:52:37,154 I learned about two kinds of rights: 1143 00:52:37,154 --> 00:52:40,950 negative rights and positive rights. 1144 00:52:40,950 --> 00:52:45,162 Negative rights protect us from the government taking our stuff, 1145 00:52:45,162 --> 00:52:47,498 locking us up, killing us. 1146 00:52:47,498 --> 00:52:49,792 Positive rights are active rights. 1147 00:52:49,792 --> 00:52:53,170 They are things the government must do or provide. 1148 00:52:53,170 --> 00:52:57,800 They include things like... like the right to a fair trial, 1149 00:52:57,800 --> 00:52:59,427 to an attorney, 1150 00:52:59,427 --> 00:53:01,804 in some countries, the right to health care. 1151 00:53:03,973 --> 00:53:07,727 Our Constitution, primarily, with some exceptions, 1152 00:53:07,727 --> 00:53:09,729 is a negative rights document. 1153 00:53:09,729 --> 00:53:11,397 It was designed to protect the men 1154 00:53:11,397 --> 00:53:13,691 who made it and their property-- 1155 00:53:13,691 --> 00:53:15,776 their property that was sometimes people-- 1156 00:53:15,776 --> 00:53:17,528 from the government, which is in part 1157 00:53:17,528 --> 00:53:19,572 how they came to decide that Jessica Lenahan 1158 00:53:19,572 --> 00:53:21,324 was not entitled 1159 00:53:21,324 --> 00:53:24,493 to any active or positive protection from the police. 1160 00:53:24,493 --> 00:53:26,037 I also learned 1161 00:53:26,037 --> 00:53:28,748 that if the Equal Rights Amendment had been ratified, 1162 00:53:28,748 --> 00:53:31,667 she might have been entitled to protection under that. 1163 00:53:31,667 --> 00:53:33,794 And I understood for the first time 1164 00:53:33,794 --> 00:53:36,714 why my mom cried when that didn't pass. 1165 00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:43,846 So, what I'm trying to understand right now 1166 00:53:43,846 --> 00:53:47,099 is what does it mean if this Constitution 1167 00:53:47,099 --> 00:53:51,270 will not protect us from the violence of men? 1168 00:53:51,270 --> 00:53:53,856 And I don't want to vilify men. I don't-- I love men. 1169 00:53:53,856 --> 00:53:55,066 I really do. 1170 00:53:55,066 --> 00:53:57,276 -I fucking love you. 1171 00:53:57,276 --> 00:53:59,737 I'm the daughter of a father. 1172 00:54:04,533 --> 00:54:06,911 But the facts, the facts are so extreme. 1173 00:54:06,911 --> 00:54:08,788 They really-- I had no idea, truly. 1174 00:54:08,788 --> 00:54:10,414 I did-- I thought it would be interesting 1175 00:54:10,414 --> 00:54:12,625 to take the prompt of this contest seriously, 1176 00:54:12,625 --> 00:54:15,294 to-to find a personal connection 1177 00:54:15,294 --> 00:54:17,713 between my life and this Constitution, 1178 00:54:17,713 --> 00:54:19,840 and then I learned that this century, 1179 00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:22,593 the 21st century, more American women 1180 00:54:22,593 --> 00:54:24,845 have been killed by their male partners 1181 00:54:24,845 --> 00:54:27,890 than Americans have died in wars, 1182 00:54:27,890 --> 00:54:30,893 including 9/11. 1183 00:54:30,893 --> 00:54:33,729 That, uh... 1184 00:54:33,729 --> 00:54:35,439 That is not the number of women 1185 00:54:35,439 --> 00:54:37,650 who have been killed by men in this country. 1186 00:54:37,650 --> 00:54:40,319 That is only the number of women who have been killed 1187 00:54:40,319 --> 00:54:43,364 by the men who supposedly love them. 1188 00:54:45,366 --> 00:54:47,368 Which is... 1189 00:54:49,662 --> 00:54:51,998 I just, I-I... 1190 00:54:51,998 --> 00:54:56,085 find the statistic so overwhelming, I... 1191 00:54:56,085 --> 00:54:59,088 I have to forget about it just to get through my day. 1192 00:55:00,339 --> 00:55:03,009 Except, I think you can't forget about it, right? 1193 00:55:03,009 --> 00:55:04,635 I think... 1194 00:55:06,012 --> 00:55:09,348 ...even if you don't know the statistic, 1195 00:55:09,348 --> 00:55:12,977 the truth of that is there all the time. 1196 00:55:14,979 --> 00:55:16,814 The truth of that... 1197 00:55:18,899 --> 00:55:22,236 ...rampant violence against women's bodies 1198 00:55:22,236 --> 00:55:26,657 is underneath everything all the time... 1199 00:55:28,534 --> 00:55:30,536 ...humming. 1200 00:55:47,219 --> 00:55:49,764 When I was 17, 1201 00:55:49,764 --> 00:55:52,892 I used the money from your contest to go to college. 1202 00:55:52,892 --> 00:55:55,144 I, uh, I registered prelaw. 1203 00:55:55,144 --> 00:55:57,980 I also auditioned for the fall play Red Noses. 1204 00:55:57,980 --> 00:55:59,648 It was about a theater troupe in the Middle Ages 1205 00:55:59,648 --> 00:56:01,233 trying to survive the plague. 1206 00:56:01,233 --> 00:56:03,486 I played a one-legged tap dancer who dies. 1207 00:56:05,613 --> 00:56:08,240 On, uh, on the first day of rehearsal, this senior boy 1208 00:56:08,240 --> 00:56:10,493 asked me if I wanted a ride home, and I said sure, 1209 00:56:10,493 --> 00:56:13,037 and then, uh, as soon as we got to my dorm, he parked the car. 1210 00:56:13,037 --> 00:56:14,538 He said, "Oh, my God, I've been waiting to kiss you 1211 00:56:14,538 --> 00:56:16,165 for so long," which I thought was weird 1212 00:56:16,165 --> 00:56:18,084 'cause we'd known each other three hours. 1213 00:56:18,084 --> 00:56:20,795 But he was cute, so I kissed him, 1214 00:56:20,795 --> 00:56:24,423 and then suddenly, he just took off my pants. 1215 00:56:24,423 --> 00:56:26,717 And, uh... 1216 00:56:26,717 --> 00:56:29,512 You all, I was so smart when I was 17. 1217 00:56:29,512 --> 00:56:31,889 I-I was way smarter than I am now. 1218 00:56:31,889 --> 00:56:33,891 Plus, I had read everything, I thought. 1219 00:56:33,891 --> 00:56:37,561 I-I had read Gloria Steinem and bell hooks and Audre Lord. 1220 00:56:37,561 --> 00:56:40,147 I-I was taking advanced feminist studies. 1221 00:56:40,147 --> 00:56:42,983 And yet I still decided to go ahead and have sex with this guy 1222 00:56:42,983 --> 00:56:45,903 because it seemed like the polite thing to do. 1223 00:56:48,656 --> 00:56:50,658 I think. 1224 00:56:52,952 --> 00:56:54,370 Now, I don't know, though. 1225 00:56:54,370 --> 00:56:55,871 Uh, I don't know, because, uh, 1226 00:56:55,871 --> 00:56:57,873 when I remember being in the car, 1227 00:56:57,873 --> 00:57:00,417 I remember how dark it was outside. 1228 00:57:00,417 --> 00:57:03,129 I remember looking around. Uh... 1229 00:57:03,129 --> 00:57:04,672 There was nobody on the street. 1230 00:57:04,672 --> 00:57:07,550 My dorm was way, way out on the edge of campus. 1231 00:57:07,550 --> 00:57:10,344 And I remember having this sick feeling 1232 00:57:10,344 --> 00:57:12,930 in the pit of my stomach, 1233 00:57:12,930 --> 00:57:16,142 and then this fleeting thought, 1234 00:57:16,142 --> 00:57:19,311 so quick, I almost can't put it into language. 1235 00:57:19,311 --> 00:57:23,190 But if I had to say it out loud, it would sound like: 1236 00:57:23,190 --> 00:57:25,818 "stay alive." 1237 00:57:28,404 --> 00:57:29,822 Which is... 1238 00:57:32,032 --> 00:57:34,743 It's, uh, it's really strange, because this guy 1239 00:57:34,743 --> 00:57:36,662 would not have hurt me. 1240 00:57:36,662 --> 00:57:38,164 He wouldn't. I know that he wouldn't. 1241 00:57:38,164 --> 00:57:39,748 We're friends to this day. 1242 00:57:41,750 --> 00:57:43,377 I mean, we're Facebook friends, but... 1243 00:57:47,548 --> 00:57:50,176 I'm 99% sure he would not have hurt me, 1244 00:57:50,176 --> 00:57:54,096 so why did I feel like my life was in danger? 1245 00:57:56,974 --> 00:57:59,185 Can you read those Hammurabi index cards? 1246 00:58:04,732 --> 00:58:06,942 The first law pertaining to domestic violence 1247 00:58:06,942 --> 00:58:09,528 comes from Hammurabi in 1800 BC. 1248 00:58:09,528 --> 00:58:11,697 It decreed that a husband could inflict punishment 1249 00:58:11,697 --> 00:58:14,116 on any member of his household for any reason. 1250 00:58:14,116 --> 00:58:16,202 The Roman code of pater familias 1251 00:58:16,202 --> 00:58:18,204 said a man could kill his wife for adultery 1252 00:58:18,204 --> 00:58:19,830 or for walking outside without her face covered. 1253 00:58:19,830 --> 00:58:22,124 In Renaissance France, when it became clear 1254 00:58:22,124 --> 00:58:24,126 that too many women and children were being beaten to death 1255 00:58:24,126 --> 00:58:26,670 and it was hurting the economy, men were restricted 1256 00:58:26,670 --> 00:58:28,923 to blows that did not leave marks. 1257 00:58:28,923 --> 00:58:30,883 In 18th-century England, the law said that a man 1258 00:58:30,883 --> 00:58:32,635 could only hit his wife with a whip or stick 1259 00:58:32,635 --> 00:58:34,303 no thicker than his thumb. 1260 00:58:34,303 --> 00:58:36,138 Although many people think this is where the phrase 1261 00:58:36,138 --> 00:58:38,724 "rule of thumb" originated, that's not actually true. 1262 00:58:38,724 --> 00:58:41,936 Ooh, that thing I said, about the male-to-female ratio 1263 00:58:41,936 --> 00:58:43,938 in Washington State being nine to one? 1264 00:58:43,938 --> 00:58:45,439 Not true. 1265 00:58:45,439 --> 00:58:47,858 That is what my history teacher Mr. Berger taught me. 1266 00:58:47,858 --> 00:58:49,735 There were thousands and thousands of women 1267 00:58:49,735 --> 00:58:51,362 in Washington State, of course. 1268 00:58:51,362 --> 00:58:54,240 The women of the Salish tribes, the Wenatchi tribes. 1269 00:58:54,240 --> 00:58:56,158 And apparently, some of these women 1270 00:58:56,158 --> 00:58:58,285 had been marrying white men for a hundred years, 1271 00:58:58,285 --> 00:59:00,162 and according to these women's journals, 1272 00:59:00,162 --> 00:59:02,206 these marriages were actually pretty good. 1273 00:59:02,206 --> 00:59:04,124 Because these tribes were egalitarian. 1274 00:59:04,124 --> 00:59:06,794 Women could be priests. They could be translators. 1275 00:59:06,794 --> 00:59:08,295 They could be boat makers. 1276 00:59:08,295 --> 00:59:11,882 Then Washington became a state, was under the umbrella 1277 00:59:11,882 --> 00:59:13,717 of the Constitution that I worshipped, 1278 00:59:13,717 --> 00:59:15,302 which meant that indigenous women 1279 00:59:15,302 --> 00:59:17,012 were no longer considered people, 1280 00:59:17,012 --> 00:59:18,973 the marriages became illegal, 1281 00:59:18,973 --> 00:59:20,808 and they brought in a bunch of white women 1282 00:59:20,808 --> 00:59:22,226 like my Great-Great-Grandmother Theresa. 1283 00:59:22,226 --> 00:59:23,644 -Go ahead. 1284 00:59:23,644 --> 00:59:26,313 In 1910, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a wife 1285 00:59:26,313 --> 00:59:28,649 could not press assault charges against a husband 1286 00:59:28,649 --> 00:59:30,526 because it would open the doors of the courts 1287 00:59:30,526 --> 00:59:33,654 to accusations of all sorts of one spouse against the other. 1288 00:59:33,654 --> 00:59:36,407 In 1977, the California Penal Code stated 1289 00:59:36,407 --> 00:59:38,450 that wives charging husbands with criminal assault 1290 00:59:38,450 --> 00:59:40,536 must suffer more injuries than commonly needed 1291 00:59:40,536 --> 00:59:42,162 for charges of battery. 1292 00:59:42,162 --> 00:59:44,832 In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that Jessica Lenahan 1293 00:59:44,832 --> 00:59:46,959 could not sue the Castle Rock Police Department 1294 00:59:46,959 --> 00:59:50,254 for failing to show up to protect her and her children. 1295 00:59:50,254 --> 00:59:52,339 In 2014, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ruled 1296 00:59:52,339 --> 00:59:54,425 that the United States violated the human rights 1297 00:59:54,425 --> 00:59:57,344 -of Jessica Lenahan and her daughters. -Thank you, Mike. 1298 00:59:57,344 --> 00:59:59,013 -Uh, everybody, this is Mike. 1299 00:59:59,013 --> 01:00:00,597 He's, uh-- yeah, he's wonderful. 1300 01:00:00,597 --> 01:00:02,433 He's a wonderful person, wonderful actor. 1301 01:00:02,433 --> 01:00:04,852 And, uh, when I realized I was gonna have to talk about 1302 01:00:04,852 --> 01:00:06,895 so much violence up here onstage, 1303 01:00:06,895 --> 01:00:09,356 I just, I really wanted some positive male energy 1304 01:00:09,356 --> 01:00:10,983 up here with me. 1305 01:00:20,492 --> 01:00:22,870 I'm representing a real person from Heidi's life, 1306 01:00:22,870 --> 01:00:26,373 Mel Yonkin, who was a-a Legionnaire. 1307 01:00:26,373 --> 01:00:28,709 He fought in World War II. 1308 01:00:28,709 --> 01:00:31,337 He was an incredibly sweet man that would travel 1309 01:00:31,337 --> 01:00:33,088 around the country with Heidi and her family, 1310 01:00:33,088 --> 01:00:34,882 going from contest to contest. 1311 01:00:34,882 --> 01:00:37,176 He always told her how proud he was of her, 1312 01:00:37,176 --> 01:00:40,304 and-and when she won, he would get kind of misty, 1313 01:00:40,304 --> 01:00:41,972 pretend he had a cold. 1314 01:00:43,932 --> 01:00:45,559 I was very excited when Heidi asked me 1315 01:00:45,559 --> 01:00:47,102 to be a part of the show, although I did think 1316 01:00:47,102 --> 01:00:48,729 it was kind of a serious responsibility 1317 01:00:48,729 --> 01:00:52,316 -to be representing "positive male energy." - 1318 01:00:52,316 --> 01:00:54,318 I feel like I spent many years sort of refusing 1319 01:00:54,318 --> 01:00:55,611 to be boxed in gender-wise. 1320 01:00:55,611 --> 01:00:57,112 I guess I kind of thought of myself 1321 01:00:57,112 --> 01:00:59,365 as having gender-neutral energy. 1322 01:00:59,365 --> 01:01:01,617 Which, given that I always present as male, 1323 01:01:01,617 --> 01:01:04,912 sometimes that seems a little... irresponsibly privileged to me. 1324 01:01:04,912 --> 01:01:07,289 Also, I would like to be able to report that I also had 1325 01:01:07,289 --> 01:01:10,042 a crush on Patrick Swayze when I was younger like Heidi did. 1326 01:01:11,460 --> 01:01:14,588 But the truth is I was kind of more into Mel Gibson. 1327 01:01:16,340 --> 01:01:17,925 Yeah. No, I... 1328 01:01:20,511 --> 01:01:22,721 I just, I just really wanted to be him 1329 01:01:22,721 --> 01:01:25,265 in-in the movie The Road Warrior, and after it came out, 1330 01:01:25,265 --> 01:01:26,892 I was always talking to my friends about, 1331 01:01:26,892 --> 01:01:28,685 "Oh, I want to dye a little tuft 1332 01:01:28,685 --> 01:01:30,771 of my hair blond over my ear," 1333 01:01:30,771 --> 01:01:32,481 like Mel had in the movie. 1334 01:01:32,481 --> 01:01:34,650 And I thought I had a hilarious Australian accent, 1335 01:01:34,650 --> 01:01:36,485 but, I mean, you just heard it; it's a Cockney accent. 1336 01:01:37,736 --> 01:01:39,363 Which is interesting because my dad actually 1337 01:01:39,363 --> 01:01:41,782 is a British working-class immigrant, 1338 01:01:41,782 --> 01:01:43,534 but he's not a Cockney. 1339 01:01:43,534 --> 01:01:45,202 He's from Wales and Yorkshire, 1340 01:01:45,202 --> 01:01:46,829 which are two totally different accents. 1341 01:01:46,829 --> 01:01:48,455 I won't be doing them for you now. 1342 01:01:48,455 --> 01:01:49,623 -You are welcome. 1343 01:01:49,623 --> 01:01:52,292 Um, my dad is this incredibly charming guy. 1344 01:01:52,292 --> 01:01:54,044 All my friends are really crazy about him, and I remember 1345 01:01:54,044 --> 01:01:56,338 being a kid, and both kind of admiring his, like, 1346 01:01:56,338 --> 01:01:58,882 masculine charisma, and also knowing that something about it 1347 01:01:58,882 --> 01:02:00,551 was, like, a little bit put on. 1348 01:02:00,551 --> 01:02:04,721 For example, he went through a CB radio phase. 1349 01:02:04,721 --> 01:02:06,807 I was in high school, we were driving across country together, 1350 01:02:06,807 --> 01:02:08,559 but we were in two different cars, 1351 01:02:08,559 --> 01:02:11,437 and so he wanted us to stay in touch via CB radios. 1352 01:02:11,437 --> 01:02:13,063 And so, he would say stuff like, "Heads up, Mike, 1353 01:02:13,063 --> 01:02:14,481 we're gonna take a left at the next exit." 1354 01:02:14,481 --> 01:02:16,024 And I would say stuff like, "Dad, 1355 01:02:16,024 --> 01:02:17,609 when are we gonna get a bathroom break?" 1356 01:02:17,609 --> 01:02:19,278 And once, another voice broke in 1357 01:02:19,278 --> 01:02:21,780 and said, "Couple queers on the line." 1358 01:02:21,780 --> 01:02:23,615 -Like, a trucker or somebody, 1359 01:02:23,615 --> 01:02:26,785 like, a deep male voice, like, deeper than mine or my dad's. 1360 01:02:26,785 --> 01:02:30,372 There was a terrible pause, like, a pit in my stomach. 1361 01:02:30,372 --> 01:02:32,499 Was my dad lisping inadvertently? 1362 01:02:32,499 --> 01:02:34,126 Or was I or something? 1363 01:02:34,126 --> 01:02:37,796 And then my dad responded, "And a faggot listening in." 1364 01:02:40,716 --> 01:02:44,970 So, all things considered, good save? Or... 1365 01:02:46,388 --> 01:02:48,390 But I must not have been out to my dad at that point. 1366 01:02:48,390 --> 01:02:49,892 There's no way he would use that kind of language 1367 01:02:49,892 --> 01:02:52,352 if he'd known I was gay back then. 1368 01:02:52,352 --> 01:02:56,690 I mean, I didn't really know I was gay back then. 1369 01:02:56,690 --> 01:03:00,402 Maybe I thought my sexual orientation was "nerd." 1370 01:03:04,448 --> 01:03:06,074 Couple years after that, I was in college, 1371 01:03:06,074 --> 01:03:07,826 and I was gonna drive down from Maine to Boston 1372 01:03:07,826 --> 01:03:09,286 to live with my girlfriend-- 1373 01:03:09,286 --> 01:03:10,704 I was still dating women at the time-- 1374 01:03:10,704 --> 01:03:14,958 and I was wearing a YSL slate-blue suit vest as a shirt, 1375 01:03:14,958 --> 01:03:16,793 tight cotton cutoffs 1376 01:03:16,793 --> 01:03:20,005 with these big-big red, white and blue stripes on them, 1377 01:03:20,005 --> 01:03:23,133 and brown ankle boots with these fuzzy pink socks 1378 01:03:23,133 --> 01:03:24,968 kind of like rolled up, peeking out the top. 1379 01:03:24,968 --> 01:03:27,095 And so, my dad saw me as I was headed out the door 1380 01:03:27,095 --> 01:03:28,555 and he says, "You look ridiculous. 1381 01:03:28,555 --> 01:03:30,224 You cannot wear this!" 1382 01:03:30,224 --> 01:03:31,850 And I know he was only trying to protect me, 1383 01:03:31,850 --> 01:03:33,060 but he may also have had a point, 1384 01:03:33,060 --> 01:03:34,561 because a couple years after that, 1385 01:03:34,561 --> 01:03:36,104 I was first living here in New York City, 1386 01:03:36,104 --> 01:03:37,689 I was with four of my friends, 1387 01:03:37,689 --> 01:03:40,817 we were walking from the Tunnel Bar to another bar 1388 01:03:40,817 --> 01:03:42,736 that was literally just called The Bar, that was down 1389 01:03:42,736 --> 01:03:44,655 in the East Village, like, right off the F train, 1390 01:03:44,655 --> 01:03:50,327 and I was wearing black nylon Patricia Field hot pants 1391 01:03:50,327 --> 01:03:52,829 with these little red velvet polka dots on them. 1392 01:03:52,829 --> 01:03:54,289 And we passed a group of teenagers, 1393 01:03:54,289 --> 01:03:56,500 and one of them punched me in the face. 1394 01:03:58,001 --> 01:03:59,836 As I've gotten older, I've become more comfortable 1395 01:03:59,836 --> 01:04:02,339 just kind of... 1396 01:04:02,339 --> 01:04:04,883 presenting as "basic male." 1397 01:04:06,885 --> 01:04:08,887 It feels... 1398 01:04:10,597 --> 01:04:13,433 ...I don't know, more me. 1399 01:04:13,433 --> 01:04:15,060 I think. 1400 01:04:17,312 --> 01:04:19,565 Couple years ago, I was in Baltimore 1401 01:04:19,565 --> 01:04:22,401 and I was at a sports bar called Pickles Pub. 1402 01:04:22,401 --> 01:04:24,403 And there was a guy at the bar. 1403 01:04:24,403 --> 01:04:26,196 He was, like, six-foot-two, 230 pounds, 1404 01:04:26,196 --> 01:04:28,031 like, a big, big bald white guy. 1405 01:04:28,031 --> 01:04:31,201 And behind the bar was a woman and she was running around 1406 01:04:31,201 --> 01:04:32,411 taking everybody's orders. 1407 01:04:32,411 --> 01:04:34,454 And so, the guy turns to me and he goes, 1408 01:04:34,454 --> 01:04:36,873 "Don't you want to fuck her?" 1409 01:04:36,873 --> 01:04:38,542 And there was a weird pause 1410 01:04:38,542 --> 01:04:40,627 where I didn't really know how to respond to that. 1411 01:04:40,627 --> 01:04:43,422 I mean, was he really asking me? 1412 01:04:43,422 --> 01:04:47,801 Was he testing me to find out if I was gay? 1413 01:04:49,136 --> 01:04:50,679 Was he capable of violence? 1414 01:04:50,679 --> 01:04:53,307 Was the woman behind the bar feeling like how you felt 1415 01:04:53,307 --> 01:04:55,559 in the car with that guy that time? 1416 01:04:55,559 --> 01:04:57,603 This guy was, like, a beast physically, but I also had 1417 01:04:57,603 --> 01:05:00,897 this kind of weird sympathy for him. 1418 01:05:00,897 --> 01:05:04,985 So, I slapped him on the back and I said, "Good luck, man," 1419 01:05:04,985 --> 01:05:07,821 and I walked out of the bar. 1420 01:05:11,450 --> 01:05:15,203 I would love it now if all this could go away, too. 1421 01:05:15,203 --> 01:05:18,915 Uh, the contest, all of this. 1422 01:05:18,915 --> 01:05:21,543 I, uh, I would love to have 1423 01:05:21,543 --> 01:05:24,671 one of those incredible Broadway set changes now. 1424 01:05:36,850 --> 01:05:39,144 Uh, since it's not that kind of play, 1425 01:05:39,144 --> 01:05:41,146 uh, maybe we could all just imagine 1426 01:05:41,146 --> 01:05:42,898 that we're someplace else. 1427 01:05:42,898 --> 01:05:45,108 Maybe we could imagine something else. 1428 01:05:48,445 --> 01:05:51,073 And you are welcome to be yourselves again. 1429 01:05:51,073 --> 01:05:55,452 If you haven't already done that, this is a perfect time. 1430 01:05:55,452 --> 01:05:59,456 You are, uh, you are so welcome to be yourself. 1431 01:06:15,180 --> 01:06:20,352 My mom and my aunt, uh, are the ones 1432 01:06:20,352 --> 01:06:22,979 who told the police about their stepfather, 1433 01:06:22,979 --> 01:06:26,692 because my Grandma Betty was too scared to do it. 1434 01:06:26,692 --> 01:06:29,277 My, uh, my mom and my aunt had been born 1435 01:06:29,277 --> 01:06:32,239 a little further out of the penumbra than my grandma. 1436 01:06:32,239 --> 01:06:35,534 They were born a little over 20 years 1437 01:06:35,534 --> 01:06:38,787 after women got the right to vote. 1438 01:06:38,787 --> 01:06:41,415 Also, my mom had this woman teacher 1439 01:06:41,415 --> 01:06:45,210 who took her aside, told her something else was possible, 1440 01:06:45,210 --> 01:06:50,215 and also taught her this newly fashionable word, "feminist." 1441 01:06:52,384 --> 01:06:54,761 When, uh, when my mom's stepfather found out 1442 01:06:54,761 --> 01:06:58,724 they had talked to the police, uh, he became enraged. 1443 01:06:58,724 --> 01:07:01,435 He got his constitutionally protected gun, 1444 01:07:01,435 --> 01:07:04,438 and he threatened to kill his whole family. 1445 01:07:04,438 --> 01:07:07,357 And my Grandma Betty finally decided, 1446 01:07:07,357 --> 01:07:09,526 in spite of the fact that she'd inherited 1447 01:07:09,526 --> 01:07:11,945 the pretty logical belief that her life 1448 01:07:11,945 --> 01:07:15,198 and her kids' lives did not matter in the eyes of the law, 1449 01:07:15,198 --> 01:07:17,784 in spite of that, she decided she had to do something. 1450 01:07:17,784 --> 01:07:22,664 So she finally gathered all her kids together and ran away. 1451 01:07:24,666 --> 01:07:29,129 The, uh, the police showed up for my family. 1452 01:07:29,129 --> 01:07:31,381 It was a small town. 1453 01:07:31,381 --> 01:07:33,550 They were white. 1454 01:07:33,550 --> 01:07:37,637 They, uh... they arrested my mom's stepfather, 1455 01:07:37,637 --> 01:07:39,931 but my Grandma Betty was too terrified 1456 01:07:39,931 --> 01:07:43,685 to testify against him, so, uh, my mom did that, too, 1457 01:07:43,685 --> 01:07:47,481 in support of her sister, at age 15. 1458 01:07:47,481 --> 01:07:50,484 And then my Grandma Betty said that she was lying. 1459 01:07:55,447 --> 01:07:57,282 She was not lying. 1460 01:07:57,282 --> 01:08:00,118 Uh, her stepfather was sentenced to 30 years in prison. 1461 01:08:00,118 --> 01:08:01,745 He served two. 1462 01:08:01,745 --> 01:08:03,830 But, uh, the fact that he went to prison at all 1463 01:08:03,830 --> 01:08:05,832 is probably why I get to be here right now, 1464 01:08:05,832 --> 01:08:07,959 telling you these stories. 1465 01:08:07,959 --> 01:08:10,253 Sometimes, uh, when I think about how brave 1466 01:08:10,253 --> 01:08:14,299 my mom and my aunt were as teenage girls, 1467 01:08:14,299 --> 01:08:18,428 I just-- I mean, it gives me such respect for them. 1468 01:08:18,428 --> 01:08:20,639 It makes me want to do more, be braver. 1469 01:08:20,639 --> 01:08:23,475 But also, it also makes me think about the fact 1470 01:08:23,475 --> 01:08:26,269 that progress doesn't only move one way. 1471 01:08:26,269 --> 01:08:29,856 I just, I feel so excited by young people lately. 1472 01:08:29,856 --> 01:08:31,066 I really do. 1473 01:08:31,066 --> 01:08:33,568 I feel like you all are so much braver 1474 01:08:33,568 --> 01:08:35,320 than I remember being at your age, 1475 01:08:35,320 --> 01:08:37,781 you have more compassion, you certainly have 1476 01:08:37,781 --> 01:08:39,991 a more sophisticated understanding of gender. 1477 01:08:44,704 --> 01:08:46,706 Sometimes, I feel like you're, like you're shining 1478 01:08:46,706 --> 01:08:48,708 a light backwards into the darkness 1479 01:08:48,708 --> 01:08:51,628 so I can follow you into the future. 1480 01:08:53,046 --> 01:08:56,174 I, uh, I've actually-- I've struggled my whole life 1481 01:08:56,174 --> 01:08:59,928 to forgive my grandma for not protecting my mom. 1482 01:08:59,928 --> 01:09:01,555 I just, I... 1483 01:09:03,348 --> 01:09:05,183 I don't know how to forgive her, 1484 01:09:05,183 --> 01:09:07,185 because it made my mom's life so hard. 1485 01:09:07,185 --> 01:09:10,730 But, uh, but that's also really confusing, 1486 01:09:10,730 --> 01:09:13,900 because I loved my grandma so much. 1487 01:09:13,900 --> 01:09:17,028 I mean, we all loved her. My mom loved her. 1488 01:09:17,028 --> 01:09:19,739 My aunts and uncles loved her. 1489 01:09:19,739 --> 01:09:24,661 And-and the Grandma Betty I knew is-is not the same woman 1490 01:09:24,661 --> 01:09:26,538 who didn't protect her kids. 1491 01:09:26,538 --> 01:09:29,833 The grandma I knew loved us all like crazy. 1492 01:09:29,833 --> 01:09:32,419 She gave her whole life to her kids, 1493 01:09:32,419 --> 01:09:33,879 her grandkids, her great-grandkids. 1494 01:09:33,879 --> 01:09:35,463 She would've done anything for us. 1495 01:09:35,463 --> 01:09:38,758 She-she... she sent me that sock monkey all the way to Siberia. 1496 01:09:38,758 --> 01:09:40,635 She-- I know she would have thrown her body 1497 01:09:40,635 --> 01:09:42,012 in front of a truck for me. 1498 01:09:42,012 --> 01:09:43,555 So I have no idea how to make sense 1499 01:09:43,555 --> 01:09:45,640 of my two grandmothers. 1500 01:09:45,640 --> 01:09:47,517 Except while I've been making this, 1501 01:09:47,517 --> 01:09:49,519 I've realized how many of us are forced 1502 01:09:49,519 --> 01:09:52,355 to be two people in this culture. 1503 01:09:52,355 --> 01:09:55,233 Actually, something I learned from a younger person, 1504 01:09:55,233 --> 01:09:56,985 a younger feminist, that helps me understand my grandma 1505 01:09:56,985 --> 01:09:58,361 just a little bit better, 1506 01:09:58,361 --> 01:10:00,071 is they taught me about this concept 1507 01:10:00,071 --> 01:10:01,907 called "covert resistance." 1508 01:10:01,907 --> 01:10:05,076 Covert resistance is the idea that sometimes 1509 01:10:05,076 --> 01:10:08,455 seemingly passive, victim-like behaviors, uh, 1510 01:10:08,455 --> 01:10:12,292 pleasing behaviors, are the sanest and smartest response 1511 01:10:12,292 --> 01:10:16,296 to living in a violent culture, in a culture and a country 1512 01:10:16,296 --> 01:10:18,715 that is making it clear every single day 1513 01:10:18,715 --> 01:10:21,885 it has no fucking interest in protecting you. 1514 01:10:23,136 --> 01:10:26,306 In the case of, say, my grandmother, 1515 01:10:26,306 --> 01:10:29,893 covert resistance is all the invisible, brave actions 1516 01:10:29,893 --> 01:10:32,729 a woman takes inside a violent relationship she can't leave 1517 01:10:32,729 --> 01:10:34,940 because she doesn't make as much money as a man, 1518 01:10:34,940 --> 01:10:37,233 because the police might not show up when she calls, 1519 01:10:37,233 --> 01:10:40,320 or depending on the color of her skin, 1520 01:10:40,320 --> 01:10:43,323 they might show up and something terrible might happen. 1521 01:10:49,371 --> 01:10:51,456 Because she doesn't have decision-making power 1522 01:10:51,456 --> 01:10:53,166 over her own fucking body. 1523 01:10:54,918 --> 01:10:57,253 Covert resistance doesn't really fit 1524 01:10:57,253 --> 01:10:59,673 into our traditional narratives of heroism. 1525 01:10:59,673 --> 01:11:03,134 It, uh, it involves a lot of tiny, daily actions. 1526 01:11:03,134 --> 01:11:06,096 It involves things like a woman feeding her kids, 1527 01:11:06,096 --> 01:11:08,348 working 12 hours a day for them, 1528 01:11:08,348 --> 01:11:10,016 helping them get a good education, 1529 01:11:10,016 --> 01:11:12,852 helping them graduate at the top of their class. 1530 01:11:12,852 --> 01:11:14,813 It can also involve less positive things, 1531 01:11:14,813 --> 01:11:20,026 things like getting sick, maybe dying of melancholia, 1532 01:11:20,026 --> 01:11:24,114 and, uh... not running away. 1533 01:11:24,114 --> 01:11:26,408 Because in this country, 1534 01:11:26,408 --> 01:11:29,077 the moment a woman decides to run away 1535 01:11:29,077 --> 01:11:31,162 is the moment her life and her kids' lives 1536 01:11:31,162 --> 01:11:33,164 are in the most danger. 1537 01:11:40,422 --> 01:11:43,883 Uh, when my Grandma Betty died, my uncle found $30,000 1538 01:11:43,883 --> 01:11:46,302 hidden underneath her mattress with a note that said 1539 01:11:46,302 --> 01:11:48,346 to give $5,000 dollars to each of her kids. 1540 01:11:48,346 --> 01:11:51,558 She had been saving that money for 50 years. 1541 01:12:01,985 --> 01:12:06,823 I, uh, I actually, I took George the Second's Friend 1542 01:12:06,823 --> 01:12:08,950 with me on this business trip to L.A. 1543 01:12:08,950 --> 01:12:10,994 He, uh, he loves the West Coast. 1544 01:12:12,579 --> 01:12:14,289 I had him in my bag wrapped in a stocking cap, 1545 01:12:14,289 --> 01:12:16,249 and then it got cold on the plane, so I took him out, 1546 01:12:16,249 --> 01:12:17,751 I put on a hat, 1547 01:12:17,751 --> 01:12:18,960 I wrapped him up in an airplane blanket, uh, 1548 01:12:18,960 --> 01:12:20,545 so I wouldn't be, like, a middle-aged lady 1549 01:12:20,545 --> 01:12:23,465 with a stuffed monkey on my lap, and then I was at baggage claim, 1550 01:12:23,465 --> 01:12:25,467 and I realized I had left 1551 01:12:25,467 --> 01:12:28,303 George the Second's Friend on the plane. 1552 01:12:28,303 --> 01:12:31,139 And, uh, yeah, my reaction was much bigger than that. 1553 01:12:32,849 --> 01:12:34,476 Actually, I don't even know how to describe it to you 1554 01:12:34,476 --> 01:12:37,228 except to say that if Meryl Streep and I had been 1555 01:12:37,228 --> 01:12:40,231 auditioning for that "dingo ate my baby" movie together, 1556 01:12:40,231 --> 01:12:42,817 -I would have gotten that part. 1557 01:12:42,817 --> 01:12:45,403 I was wailing. I was sobbing. 1558 01:12:45,403 --> 01:12:47,614 I was, I was doing the Greek tragedy crying. 1559 01:12:47,614 --> 01:12:50,325 I ran up to the counter, tears streaming down my face. 1560 01:12:50,325 --> 01:12:51,993 This woman took one look at me, she was like, 1561 01:12:51,993 --> 01:12:53,495 "Oh, my God, are you okay?" 1562 01:12:53,495 --> 01:12:56,998 -And I was like, "No! No! No! 1563 01:12:56,998 --> 01:12:59,375 I left something very valuable on the plane!" 1564 01:12:59,375 --> 01:13:02,212 And she was like, "What is it?!" 1565 01:13:04,881 --> 01:13:08,384 And I said, "My child's favorite toy!" 1566 01:13:08,384 --> 01:13:10,553 -It gets worse. 1567 01:13:10,553 --> 01:13:14,182 -"And my child is very sick!" 1568 01:13:14,182 --> 01:13:17,852 No, it's so bad. It's so hor-- It's horrible. 1569 01:13:17,852 --> 01:13:20,522 But she really leapt into action. 1570 01:13:20,522 --> 01:13:21,981 She called up to the gate, she was like, 1571 01:13:21,981 --> 01:13:24,317 "Get that monkey off the plane!" 1572 01:13:26,152 --> 01:13:28,113 And then she swiped me through security, 1573 01:13:28,113 --> 01:13:29,906 and I started running, racing, 1574 01:13:29,906 --> 01:13:32,867 running faster than I've ever run in my entire life. 1575 01:13:32,867 --> 01:13:36,246 I-I ran past, like, 14 Starbucks. 1576 01:13:36,246 --> 01:13:37,789 -I got to the gate. 1577 01:13:37,789 --> 01:13:39,499 I can see George the Second's Friend 1578 01:13:39,499 --> 01:13:41,376 just sitting by this guy's terminal. 1579 01:13:41,376 --> 01:13:43,461 I ran up, tears still streaming down my face. 1580 01:13:43,461 --> 01:13:45,255 This guy paid no attention to me, 1581 01:13:45,255 --> 01:13:46,923 so I was just like, "Fuck it!" 1582 01:13:46,923 --> 01:13:49,050 I grabbed George the Second's Friend, 1583 01:13:49,050 --> 01:13:52,720 I ran away from him, I collapsed to the airport floor, 1584 01:13:52,720 --> 01:13:57,517 and I just kept wailing and wailing and wailing. 1585 01:13:57,517 --> 01:14:00,603 And I have no idea what I was crying about. 1586 01:14:00,603 --> 01:14:04,190 I don't know if I was crying for my Grandma Betty, 1587 01:14:04,190 --> 01:14:06,985 or-or because of chemical depression, 1588 01:14:06,985 --> 01:14:10,280 or just because he is such a cute little monkey, 1589 01:14:10,280 --> 01:14:13,658 or maybe because of centuries and centuries 1590 01:14:13,658 --> 01:14:15,827 of fucking inherited trauma, 1591 01:14:15,827 --> 01:14:20,748 or maybe, maybe it's just the appropriate response 1592 01:14:20,748 --> 01:14:23,835 to everything right now! 1593 01:14:28,631 --> 01:14:31,259 My, uh, my mom, 1594 01:14:31,259 --> 01:14:34,137 my mom says when you are consumed, 1595 01:14:34,137 --> 01:14:36,848 when you are paralyzed with rage and despair, 1596 01:14:36,848 --> 01:14:38,433 you have to think of a woman 1597 01:14:38,433 --> 01:14:40,310 running along a beach with a dog. 1598 01:14:42,854 --> 01:14:44,731 There's more. 1599 01:14:44,731 --> 01:14:48,318 She says if you watch the dog, it keeps running back and forth 1600 01:14:48,318 --> 01:14:50,528 and back and forth, so it seems like progress is 1601 01:14:50,528 --> 01:14:53,364 constantly being undone, but if you watch the woman, 1602 01:14:53,364 --> 01:14:56,159 you can see that she is moving steadily forward 1603 01:14:56,159 --> 01:14:58,661 and forward and forward. 1604 01:15:00,997 --> 01:15:02,624 I hope. 1605 01:15:05,418 --> 01:15:09,088 I, uh, I actually, I told my mom about my abortion recently, 1606 01:15:09,088 --> 01:15:11,716 because I, uh, well, I had to 'cause I was gonna tell you all. 1607 01:15:13,551 --> 01:15:15,220 She was so blasé about it. 1608 01:15:15,220 --> 01:15:16,721 She was like, "Okay." 1609 01:15:16,721 --> 01:15:19,265 I said, "Mom, why did you freak out back then?" 1610 01:15:19,265 --> 01:15:21,643 She said, "Well, I can be relaxed about it now 1611 01:15:21,643 --> 01:15:24,270 because your life turned out okay." 1612 01:15:24,270 --> 01:15:26,773 She wanted to know if I was pissed off at her. 1613 01:15:26,773 --> 01:15:30,360 I was like, "No, because my life turned out okay." 1614 01:15:33,947 --> 01:15:35,949 I think there were two mothers with me 1615 01:15:35,949 --> 01:15:38,034 in the car that day, too. 1616 01:15:38,034 --> 01:15:41,037 I think there's the first mother, who's a feminist, 1617 01:15:41,037 --> 01:15:44,707 who made me do this contest so I could go to college, 1618 01:15:44,707 --> 01:15:49,045 who, along with her sister, ended the legacy of violent men 1619 01:15:49,045 --> 01:15:52,173 in our family by testifying. 1620 01:15:52,173 --> 01:15:54,133 And then there's the second mother, 1621 01:15:54,133 --> 01:15:57,262 the mother who had been terrorized as a child. 1622 01:16:00,598 --> 01:16:03,017 The mother whose first memory at age three was seeing 1623 01:16:03,017 --> 01:16:04,686 her stepfather punch my grandma and thinking, 1624 01:16:04,686 --> 01:16:06,479 "Oh, no, this is what life is like." 1625 01:16:06,479 --> 01:16:08,940 And it is what life is like. 1626 01:16:08,940 --> 01:16:11,192 The mother who had inherited centuries 1627 01:16:11,192 --> 01:16:13,820 of belief in her own worthlessness. 1628 01:16:15,738 --> 01:16:19,158 No, not belief-- not just belief. 1629 01:16:19,158 --> 01:16:21,869 Centuries of laws that explicitly told her 1630 01:16:21,869 --> 01:16:23,871 she was worthless. 1631 01:16:25,957 --> 01:16:30,586 For me, though, that first mother was enough. 1632 01:16:30,586 --> 01:16:33,172 She taught me what my rights were. 1633 01:16:33,172 --> 01:16:35,466 I knew which laws were there to protect me, 1634 01:16:35,466 --> 01:16:37,802 and I had laws to protect me at that time. 1635 01:16:37,802 --> 01:16:39,512 I didn't need the second mother 1636 01:16:39,512 --> 01:16:40,888 to be there for me in the moment, 1637 01:16:40,888 --> 01:16:43,558 because I had laws. 1638 01:16:48,896 --> 01:16:52,775 Which just makes me think maybe it's not helpful 1639 01:16:52,775 --> 01:16:55,611 to think of the Constitution as a crucible, 1640 01:16:55,611 --> 01:16:58,698 in which we're all battling it out together, 1641 01:16:58,698 --> 01:17:01,159 in which, uh, in which we go in front of a court 1642 01:17:01,159 --> 01:17:04,954 of nine people to negotiate for our basic human rights, 1643 01:17:04,954 --> 01:17:09,417 which is what we have been doing for 230 years. 1644 01:17:09,417 --> 01:17:13,629 Because if this is a battle, or even a negotiation, 1645 01:17:13,629 --> 01:17:16,132 then the people who have always been in power 1646 01:17:16,132 --> 01:17:19,135 in this country-- always dominated, always oppressed-- 1647 01:17:19,135 --> 01:17:21,054 men... 1648 01:17:22,930 --> 01:17:25,391 ...white people... 1649 01:17:25,391 --> 01:17:28,311 are going to keep dominating and oppressing. 1650 01:17:28,311 --> 01:17:31,230 Maybe, maybe we can think of the Constitution as like 1651 01:17:31,230 --> 01:17:34,525 that first mother, a Constitution that is obligated 1652 01:17:34,525 --> 01:17:37,320 to actively look out for all of us. 1653 01:17:39,572 --> 01:17:41,449 There are so many countries 1654 01:17:41,449 --> 01:17:44,243 that have those kinds of constitutions, 1655 01:17:44,243 --> 01:17:46,371 modern, positive rights constitutions, 1656 01:17:46,371 --> 01:17:49,957 that actively rectify inequality, 1657 01:17:49,957 --> 01:17:53,086 that have human rights enshrined from the beginning. 1658 01:17:53,086 --> 01:17:56,339 179 constitutions have explicit gender protections 1659 01:17:56,339 --> 01:18:00,510 written into them-- ours is not one of them. 1660 01:18:00,510 --> 01:18:05,681 Our Constitution is really, really old. 1661 01:18:10,561 --> 01:18:13,398 Of course, the problem with making 1662 01:18:13,398 --> 01:18:16,317 an all-new positive rights constitution... 1663 01:18:17,777 --> 01:18:21,572 ...with human rights enshrined from the beginning 1664 01:18:21,572 --> 01:18:25,827 is, uh, we would still have to trust the people 1665 01:18:25,827 --> 01:18:28,538 interpreting that document, right? 1666 01:18:28,538 --> 01:18:32,917 We still have to trust the people who are in charge. 1667 01:18:35,503 --> 01:18:37,338 And the excuse 1668 01:18:37,338 --> 01:18:41,342 for not hiring women in the criminal division was 1669 01:18:41,342 --> 01:18:45,763 they have to deal with all these tough types, 1670 01:18:45,763 --> 01:18:49,892 and women aren't up to that. 1671 01:18:49,892 --> 01:18:52,311 And I was amazed. 1672 01:18:52,311 --> 01:18:55,815 I said, "Have you seen the lawyers at legal aid 1673 01:18:55,815 --> 01:18:58,401 "who are representing these tough types? 1674 01:18:58,401 --> 01:19:00,027 They are women." 1675 01:19:00,027 --> 01:19:01,821 People ask me sometimes, 1676 01:19:01,821 --> 01:19:04,824 "When, when do you think it will be enough? 1677 01:19:04,824 --> 01:19:10,246 When will... will there be enough women on the court?" 1678 01:19:10,246 --> 01:19:15,001 And my answer is, "When there are nine." 1679 01:19:23,968 --> 01:19:27,972 I, uh... I loved this contest. 1680 01:19:27,972 --> 01:19:30,892 It made me believe people would listen to me when I spoke. 1681 01:19:30,892 --> 01:19:33,436 Also I, uh, I had braces and terrible acne. 1682 01:19:33,436 --> 01:19:35,771 It was nice to be valued for my brain. 1683 01:19:35,771 --> 01:19:38,816 While I was making this, I, uh, I met with young women 1684 01:19:38,816 --> 01:19:41,611 who are doing these kinds of contests today. 1685 01:19:41,611 --> 01:19:43,613 I just, I wanted to hear what they were thinking 1686 01:19:43,613 --> 01:19:46,073 about our country, about our Constitution. 1687 01:19:46,073 --> 01:19:47,950 And one of these brilliant young women 1688 01:19:47,950 --> 01:19:50,411 -has agreed to join us here tonight. -Rosdely. 1689 01:19:50,411 --> 01:19:52,497 -Go. 1690 01:20:02,256 --> 01:20:03,799 Hi. 1691 01:20:03,799 --> 01:20:05,718 My name is Rosdely Ciprian. 1692 01:20:05,718 --> 01:20:07,845 I'm a 14-year-old debater from New York City, 1693 01:20:07,845 --> 01:20:09,722 and I've been involved with parliamentary debate 1694 01:20:09,722 --> 01:20:11,724 since the second semester of sixth grade. 1695 01:20:11,724 --> 01:20:15,269 I've argued topics such as legalizing medical marijuana 1696 01:20:15,269 --> 01:20:16,979 and whether the United States should have 1697 01:20:16,979 --> 01:20:19,815 more diplomatic engagement with the People's Republic of China. 1698 01:20:19,815 --> 01:20:21,817 Mr. Beattie is my debate coach. 1699 01:20:21,817 --> 01:20:23,945 He coaches to argue both sides of a debate. 1700 01:20:23,945 --> 01:20:26,531 Which is why Heidi invited me here tonight-- 1701 01:20:26,531 --> 01:20:29,575 to dig deeper into a big question about the Constitution: 1702 01:20:29,575 --> 01:20:32,578 Is it protecting us, or is it the source of our problems? 1703 01:20:32,578 --> 01:20:34,789 Personally, I think the answer is both. 1704 01:20:34,789 --> 01:20:36,624 But for the sake of having a good debate, 1705 01:20:36,624 --> 01:20:38,960 we're each going to take a different side here tonight. 1706 01:20:38,960 --> 01:20:40,545 But before I can explain to you 1707 01:20:40,545 --> 01:20:42,380 the rules of a parliamentary debate, 1708 01:20:42,380 --> 01:20:45,841 let me just say that the Constitution is not a crucible. 1709 01:20:48,761 --> 01:20:51,138 At least that's not how I like to think of it. 1710 01:20:51,138 --> 01:20:53,766 Why not just think of the Constitution as a human being? 1711 01:20:53,766 --> 01:20:55,768 I mean, it was made by human beings, 1712 01:20:55,768 --> 01:20:58,145 so it's not a big stretch, right? 1713 01:20:58,145 --> 01:21:00,940 Are human beings perfect? No. 1714 01:21:00,940 --> 01:21:03,651 Are we capable of perfection? No. 1715 01:21:03,651 --> 01:21:05,319 But this doesn't mean we're not valuable. 1716 01:21:05,319 --> 01:21:07,989 We're always growing and changing, learning. 1717 01:21:07,989 --> 01:21:09,824 My opponent brought up the Ninth Amendment 1718 01:21:09,824 --> 01:21:13,494 in her prepared speech-- which went way over time, by the way. 1719 01:21:13,494 --> 01:21:15,955 -Sure, the penumbra metaphor is an interesting way 1720 01:21:15,955 --> 01:21:17,957 to understand the Ninth Amendment, 1721 01:21:17,957 --> 01:21:19,917 and I'm not arguing against it. 1722 01:21:19,917 --> 01:21:22,295 But let me help you understand it in another way. 1723 01:21:22,295 --> 01:21:25,298 Now, I don't have any imaginary friends. 1724 01:21:25,298 --> 01:21:28,092 But I have invented a character I like to play in rehearsal 1725 01:21:28,092 --> 01:21:29,510 named Boxellia. 1726 01:21:29,510 --> 01:21:32,638 Boxellia is a scrillion-year-old AI robot 1727 01:21:32,638 --> 01:21:34,056 who can tell the future. 1728 01:21:34,056 --> 01:21:35,975 She knows what you're gonna do next summer, 1729 01:21:35,975 --> 01:21:37,810 and she knows what life on Earth will be like 1730 01:21:37,810 --> 01:21:39,478 a thousand years from now. 1731 01:21:39,478 --> 01:21:41,814 To me, the Ninth Amendment is like Boxellia; 1732 01:21:41,814 --> 01:21:43,858 she holds the memory of our future. 1733 01:21:43,858 --> 01:21:45,151 And too bad for us, 1734 01:21:45,151 --> 01:21:47,778 we won't know what that is until we get there. 1735 01:21:47,778 --> 01:21:50,323 -Okay, let's start this debate. -All right, let's do it! 1736 01:21:50,323 --> 01:21:53,117 Uh, okay, for the past two years, uh, Rosdely and I 1737 01:21:53,117 --> 01:21:55,786 have been doing parliamentary style debate together-- parli. 1738 01:21:55,786 --> 01:21:58,289 Uh, this is a style that did not exist when I was in high school. 1739 01:21:58,289 --> 01:22:00,708 And, like she said, we're gonna do a real-live debate 1740 01:22:00,708 --> 01:22:03,169 -for you right here, right now. -Yes, and our topic is: 1741 01:22:03,169 --> 01:22:05,921 Should we abolish the United States Constitution? 1742 01:22:05,921 --> 01:22:07,548 Uh, and there are some amazing folks 1743 01:22:07,548 --> 01:22:09,050 passing out pocket Constitutions, 1744 01:22:09,050 --> 01:22:12,136 -so you can follow along, check our work. - 1745 01:22:12,136 --> 01:22:13,387 Typically, in a parliamentary debate, 1746 01:22:13,387 --> 01:22:14,972 there are three people on a team, 1747 01:22:14,972 --> 01:22:16,974 but we're going to be doing this one-on-one tonight. 1748 01:22:16,974 --> 01:22:19,101 This is a style I like to call "Iron Woman." 1749 01:22:19,101 --> 01:22:21,646 And usually in a debate, we use a form called "PO-POOP," 1750 01:22:21,646 --> 01:22:23,689 which is "Proposition, Opposition, Proposition, 1751 01:22:23,689 --> 01:22:25,650 Opposition, Opposition, Proposition," 1752 01:22:25,650 --> 01:22:28,819 but we've invented another style we like to call "POPOPO," 1753 01:22:28,819 --> 01:22:30,738 which is "Proposition, Opposition, Proposition, 1754 01:22:30,738 --> 01:22:32,573 Opposition, Proposition, Opposition." 1755 01:22:32,573 --> 01:22:34,408 -The debaters 1756 01:22:34,408 --> 01:22:36,243 have been training me to be the moderator, 1757 01:22:36,243 --> 01:22:39,455 and my most important duty is to flip a coin to determine 1758 01:22:39,455 --> 01:22:42,083 which side of the argument the debaters are gonna take. 1759 01:22:42,083 --> 01:22:44,001 Rosdely, call it in the air. 1760 01:22:44,001 --> 01:22:45,544 -T-Tails. 1761 01:22:45,544 --> 01:22:47,171 -Yeah. -I guess that means 1762 01:22:47,171 --> 01:22:48,923 -you're heads, Heidi. It's heads. -I'm heads. 1763 01:22:48,923 --> 01:22:50,675 -Heads? Okay. -Yeah. 1764 01:22:50,675 --> 01:22:51,801 Uh, I want opposition, keep. 1765 01:22:51,801 --> 01:22:53,010 Okay, I'll take proposition, abolish. 1766 01:22:53,010 --> 01:22:56,013 Okay, debaters, you have 90 seconds to prepare, 1767 01:22:56,013 --> 01:22:58,683 starting now. 1768 01:22:58,683 --> 01:23:00,518 Okay, Rosdely's also been telling me 1769 01:23:00,518 --> 01:23:04,355 that in parliamentary debate, audience participation 1770 01:23:04,355 --> 01:23:07,817 plays a huge role in determining the outcome. 1771 01:23:07,817 --> 01:23:09,944 That means that if one of our debaters 1772 01:23:09,944 --> 01:23:12,071 says something that really lands with you-- 1773 01:23:12,071 --> 01:23:15,950 positively or negatively-- you got to make some noise. 1774 01:23:15,950 --> 01:23:18,703 If Rosdely or Heidi says something that you really love, 1775 01:23:18,703 --> 01:23:20,162 what are you gonna do? 1776 01:23:22,540 --> 01:23:24,542 And if they say something you really hate, 1777 01:23:24,542 --> 01:23:26,085 what are you gonna do? 1778 01:23:27,378 --> 01:23:30,256 And if upstairs hates it but downstairs loves it, 1779 01:23:30,256 --> 01:23:31,924 what are you gonna do? 1780 01:23:34,427 --> 01:23:36,929 Yeah, this feels okay. I have, I have faith in you. 1781 01:23:40,141 --> 01:23:41,642 -Ready? 1782 01:23:41,642 --> 01:23:44,603 -Uh, yes. -Uh... yes. 1783 01:23:44,603 --> 01:23:47,398 Will proposition please approach. 1784 01:23:47,398 --> 01:23:50,025 You have two minutes, starting now. 1785 01:23:50,025 --> 01:23:52,361 Good evening, judges. My name is Rosdely Ciprian, 1786 01:23:52,361 --> 01:23:54,363 and I'm here to represent the proposition: 1787 01:23:54,363 --> 01:23:57,491 "This house ought to abolish the United States Constitution." 1788 01:23:59,493 --> 01:24:01,078 Thank you, thank you, thank you. 1789 01:24:01,078 --> 01:24:03,080 Will everyone please raise your hand? 1790 01:24:05,207 --> 01:24:07,126 Now, if you're a white man who owns property, 1791 01:24:07,126 --> 01:24:08,627 please put your hands down. 1792 01:24:09,670 --> 01:24:11,839 Under the original terms of the Constitution, 1793 01:24:11,839 --> 01:24:15,301 those of you with your hands up are not considered citizens. 1794 01:24:15,301 --> 01:24:17,011 Let me ask you a question. 1795 01:24:17,011 --> 01:24:19,472 How would you feel if these white men went into another room 1796 01:24:19,472 --> 01:24:21,849 and made all the rules for the rest of us? 1797 01:24:23,642 --> 01:24:26,061 That's what I thought. Let me ask you a second question. 1798 01:24:26,061 --> 01:24:28,105 How many rich, white men who own property 1799 01:24:28,105 --> 01:24:30,399 are still in control of our government today? 1800 01:24:30,399 --> 01:24:32,568 -I know, right? 1801 01:24:32,568 --> 01:24:34,820 So why don't you look through your pocket Constitutions 1802 01:24:34,820 --> 01:24:36,614 and see where people like us belong. 1803 01:24:36,614 --> 01:24:37,698 I am right-- oh-- 1804 01:24:37,698 --> 01:24:39,533 -right here on page 34... -Point of order! 1805 01:24:39,533 --> 01:24:41,076 -We can't use props in the debate! -Noted! 1806 01:24:41,076 --> 01:24:42,244 -Who said that? Who said that? -Thank you. 1807 01:24:42,244 --> 01:24:43,245 You taught me that. You taught me that. 1808 01:24:43,245 --> 01:24:45,289 -Did I? Did I? 1809 01:24:45,289 --> 01:24:47,416 Moving on, moving on. My second point, judges, 1810 01:24:47,416 --> 01:24:49,418 is that the dead should not govern the living. 1811 01:24:49,418 --> 01:24:51,128 Thomas Jefferson himself said 1812 01:24:51,128 --> 01:24:53,172 that we should draft a new constitution 1813 01:24:53,172 --> 01:24:54,882 for every generation. 1814 01:24:54,882 --> 01:24:56,592 -The framers... 1815 01:24:56,592 --> 01:24:59,637 The framers have been in their graves for over 200 years. 1816 01:24:59,637 --> 01:25:02,056 They lived in a world without toothbrushes, deodorant 1817 01:25:02,056 --> 01:25:04,016 and toilet paper. 1818 01:25:05,935 --> 01:25:07,394 The great Benjamin Franklin 1819 01:25:07,394 --> 01:25:09,855 didn't even take a bath in fresh water, but instead he took 1820 01:25:09,855 --> 01:25:11,941 something called an "air bath," where he would 1821 01:25:11,941 --> 01:25:14,485 walk around naked, thinking that the air would bathe him. 1822 01:25:15,945 --> 01:25:17,947 And our very own George Washington died 1823 01:25:17,947 --> 01:25:19,865 because he had a cold and decided to treat it 1824 01:25:19,865 --> 01:25:21,325 with bloodletting. 1825 01:25:21,325 --> 01:25:24,161 So why, why are we listening to Bloodletting Washington 1826 01:25:24,161 --> 01:25:26,121 and Air Bath Franklin?! 1827 01:25:28,332 --> 01:25:31,710 Our Constitution is like the Horcrux in Harry Potter. 1828 01:25:31,710 --> 01:25:33,671 It is a piece of our founding fathers' soul 1829 01:25:33,671 --> 01:25:35,422 that is still somehow still alive, 1830 01:25:35,422 --> 01:25:36,799 ruling over the rest of us. 1831 01:25:36,799 --> 01:25:38,634 Let me explain. In Harry Potter, 1832 01:25:38,634 --> 01:25:40,928 a Horcrux is an object in which a dark wizard 1833 01:25:40,928 --> 01:25:43,055 has hidden a fragment of their soul 1834 01:25:43,055 --> 01:25:45,224 for the purpose of gaining immortality. 1835 01:25:45,224 --> 01:25:47,476 It is time to destroy the Horcrux 1836 01:25:47,476 --> 01:25:50,187 so that we can finally move on from the sins of our past 1837 01:25:50,187 --> 01:25:52,523 and finally write a document that is truly democratic 1838 01:25:52,523 --> 01:25:54,692 -and fully alive. 1839 01:25:54,692 --> 01:25:56,694 -Thank you. 1840 01:26:01,532 --> 01:26:04,535 Judges, uh, I am the first opposition speaker to the motion 1841 01:26:04,535 --> 01:26:06,996 that we should abolish the United States Constitution. 1842 01:26:06,996 --> 01:26:10,124 My opponent, uh, just quoted Thomas Jefferson 1843 01:26:10,124 --> 01:26:12,543 and said that the dead should not govern the living. 1844 01:26:12,543 --> 01:26:14,879 However, Thomas Jefferson himself is dead, 1845 01:26:14,879 --> 01:26:17,256 so why is she listening to him?! 1846 01:26:18,674 --> 01:26:20,384 She also said she wants 1847 01:26:20,384 --> 01:26:21,552 to make a brand-new Constitution, 1848 01:26:21,552 --> 01:26:23,053 but let me ask you this. 1849 01:26:23,053 --> 01:26:26,223 Who gets to make this new, perfect, utopian Constitution? 1850 01:26:26,223 --> 01:26:29,101 Will those of us who had our hands raised get to make it? 1851 01:26:29,101 --> 01:26:30,436 I don't think so. 1852 01:26:30,436 --> 01:26:32,354 This new Constitution will be made 1853 01:26:32,354 --> 01:26:34,356 by politicians, and since Congress 1854 01:26:34,356 --> 01:26:36,317 is still made up of mostly old white men, 1855 01:26:36,317 --> 01:26:39,486 why does she think they will write a better Constitution?! 1856 01:26:41,030 --> 01:26:42,531 Finally, judges, 1857 01:26:42,531 --> 01:26:44,533 I do not know what that Harry Potter thing is, 1858 01:26:44,533 --> 01:26:45,826 so I will not debate it. 1859 01:26:48,078 --> 01:26:49,580 Judges... 1860 01:26:49,580 --> 01:26:53,167 we have the oldest active, living constitution 1861 01:26:53,167 --> 01:26:54,710 in the world. 1862 01:26:54,710 --> 01:26:56,629 My opponent, who... who is very young, 1863 01:26:56,629 --> 01:26:58,088 -wants you to think 1864 01:26:58,088 --> 01:27:00,841 that this is a bad thing, but the reason our Constitution 1865 01:27:00,841 --> 01:27:03,093 has lasted so long is because it contains 1866 01:27:03,093 --> 01:27:06,096 the tools of its own correction, and it also contains 1867 01:27:06,096 --> 01:27:09,808 the tools we need to free ourselves from tyranny. 1868 01:27:09,808 --> 01:27:12,811 -And we need these tools right now! 1869 01:27:12,811 --> 01:27:14,813 -It is undeniable 1870 01:27:14,813 --> 01:27:17,691 that America is more equal, more democratic than it was 1871 01:27:17,691 --> 01:27:18,692 230 years ago. 1872 01:27:18,692 --> 01:27:19,818 In fact, you know what? 1873 01:27:19,818 --> 01:27:22,279 It is because of this Constitution, 1874 01:27:22,279 --> 01:27:25,908 not in spite of it, that she and I can stand up here today 1875 01:27:25,908 --> 01:27:29,078 -and insist on a better future for our country! - 1876 01:27:31,121 --> 01:27:33,457 Abolish, you have one minute for rebuttal. 1877 01:27:33,457 --> 01:27:36,627 Judges, my opponent's rebuttal that Thomas Jefferson is dead, 1878 01:27:36,627 --> 01:27:38,671 so why should we listen to him, I guess she can have it. 1879 01:27:38,671 --> 01:27:40,005 -I don't need it. 1880 01:27:40,005 --> 01:27:41,882 I will grant that I do not yet have a plan 1881 01:27:41,882 --> 01:27:43,884 for who will create this new document, 1882 01:27:43,884 --> 01:27:47,179 but I do know that it'll not be fully created by white men. 1883 01:27:47,179 --> 01:27:48,847 -And apparently... 1884 01:27:48,847 --> 01:27:51,684 apparently, my opponent-- who is much older-- 1885 01:27:51,684 --> 01:27:54,728 isn't aware about the recent changes in our government. 1886 01:27:54,728 --> 01:27:57,982 Congress is more diverse than it has ever been, 1887 01:27:57,982 --> 01:28:00,359 -and I have-- yes! 1888 01:28:00,359 --> 01:28:02,152 Yes! Yes, yes, yes! 1889 01:28:02,152 --> 01:28:04,571 And I have faith that people like me will be involved 1890 01:28:04,571 --> 01:28:06,240 in this redesigning process, 1891 01:28:06,240 --> 01:28:08,117 whether these men like it or not. 1892 01:28:10,995 --> 01:28:13,288 We have all these amendments that are supposed to correct 1893 01:28:13,288 --> 01:28:14,707 the wrongs of our history. 1894 01:28:14,707 --> 01:28:16,542 However, let's look at the 13th Amendment. 1895 01:28:16,542 --> 01:28:17,918 It abolished slavery, 1896 01:28:17,918 --> 01:28:20,671 only for it to be reimagined as a prison industry 1897 01:28:20,671 --> 01:28:23,507 that is a new systemic form of oppression. 1898 01:28:26,343 --> 01:28:29,388 It is something that I consider to be an illusion of progress. 1899 01:28:29,388 --> 01:28:31,598 And how do you expect to make any real progress 1900 01:28:31,598 --> 01:28:34,727 when the electoral college is a hot mess... 1901 01:28:36,979 --> 01:28:39,398 ...two of our... two of our last three presidents 1902 01:28:39,398 --> 01:28:41,025 did not win the popular vote, 1903 01:28:41,025 --> 01:28:43,944 different branches of government are overstepping their powers, 1904 01:28:43,944 --> 01:28:46,447 -voter suppression is rampant... 1905 01:28:46,447 --> 01:28:50,117 and nine people-- nine people-- have the disproportionate power 1906 01:28:50,117 --> 01:28:52,453 over our basic human rights and communities of color, women, 1907 01:28:52,453 --> 01:28:54,955 -LGBTQIA folx and immigrants 1908 01:28:54,955 --> 01:28:58,083 have their rights violated on a daily basis. Thank you. 1909 01:29:01,378 --> 01:29:04,089 Keep, you have 30 seconds 1910 01:29:04,089 --> 01:29:06,425 -to cross-examine. -Our document was designed 1911 01:29:06,425 --> 01:29:08,927 to make the changes that you want to make. 1912 01:29:08,927 --> 01:29:11,597 So why are you willing to put our entire democracy at risk 1913 01:29:11,597 --> 01:29:14,266 instead of just passing an amendment? 1914 01:29:14,266 --> 01:29:16,560 Well, we haven't passed an amendment in my lifetime. 1915 01:29:16,560 --> 01:29:18,687 We've been trying to pass the Equal Rights Amendment 1916 01:29:18,687 --> 01:29:20,898 for the past hundred years; what makes you think 1917 01:29:20,898 --> 01:29:23,317 -we're gonna pass it now? -Okay. Fair enough. 1918 01:29:23,317 --> 01:29:25,903 We're actually one state away from ratification, 1919 01:29:25,903 --> 01:29:28,113 -so you want to give up now? -Well, it's not giving up 1920 01:29:28,113 --> 01:29:29,865 if we're being set up to fail. 1921 01:29:29,865 --> 01:29:31,283 -Fine, let me ask you this. 1922 01:29:31,283 --> 01:29:33,202 Let's say we give you this new Constitution. 1923 01:29:33,202 --> 01:29:34,161 -Okay. 1924 01:29:34,161 --> 01:29:36,163 What is to stop 1925 01:29:36,163 --> 01:29:39,583 private lobbying organizations, corporations, 1926 01:29:39,583 --> 01:29:41,251 like, say, the NRA, from influencing 1927 01:29:41,251 --> 01:29:44,004 -the making of this new document with their money? - 1928 01:29:44,004 --> 01:29:46,006 Well, this is why we need a new Constitution 1929 01:29:46,006 --> 01:29:47,800 to stop these big lobbying corporations 1930 01:29:47,800 --> 01:29:49,885 from using their money to tilt the boat 1931 01:29:49,885 --> 01:29:51,512 that is our laws. 1932 01:29:51,512 --> 01:29:53,263 -Okay, but how? 1933 01:29:53,263 --> 01:29:54,807 How are you gonna make that happen? 1934 01:29:54,807 --> 01:29:56,725 -By making a new Constitution. 1935 01:29:56,725 --> 01:29:58,894 -Time! 1936 01:29:58,894 --> 01:30:01,480 Keep, you have one minute for rebuttal. 1937 01:30:01,480 --> 01:30:03,524 -Judges! 1938 01:30:03,524 --> 01:30:05,651 I agree that some of the progress, 1939 01:30:05,651 --> 01:30:09,238 uh, that has been made in this country is an illusion. 1940 01:30:09,238 --> 01:30:11,073 However, if we throw out this Constitution, 1941 01:30:11,073 --> 01:30:12,991 we throw away real progress 1942 01:30:12,991 --> 01:30:15,536 that people fought and died to achieve. 1943 01:30:17,204 --> 01:30:19,039 If we get rid of this Constitution tomorrow, 1944 01:30:19,039 --> 01:30:20,374 here is what would happen. 1945 01:30:20,374 --> 01:30:23,127 Same-sex marriage would be illegal in 14 states. 1946 01:30:23,127 --> 01:30:25,546 -Abortion would be illegal in 30 states. 1947 01:30:25,546 --> 01:30:28,423 -Segregation would technically be legal 1948 01:30:28,423 --> 01:30:30,092 in 32 states. 1949 01:30:30,092 --> 01:30:32,302 -Judges, the only thing 1950 01:30:32,302 --> 01:30:37,432 protecting most of us right now is actually this Constitution. 1951 01:30:39,434 --> 01:30:41,728 And the only thing, the only thing holding us together 1952 01:30:41,728 --> 01:30:44,189 at a very divided time is a collective faith 1953 01:30:44,189 --> 01:30:45,607 in this document. 1954 01:30:45,607 --> 01:30:47,943 Yes, you and I might interpret it differently, 1955 01:30:47,943 --> 01:30:50,821 but without it, we risk complete collapse. 1956 01:30:50,821 --> 01:30:53,824 Judges, Abraham Lincoln said 1957 01:30:53,824 --> 01:30:56,118 we should not throw out the Constitution, 1958 01:30:56,118 --> 01:30:58,370 but to throw out the men who abuse it! 1959 01:30:58,370 --> 01:30:59,997 -Thank you! 1960 01:30:59,997 --> 01:31:01,832 -Abolish, 1961 01:31:01,832 --> 01:31:05,127 you have 30 seconds to cross-examine. 1962 01:31:05,127 --> 01:31:07,671 Would you agree that the Supreme Court could roll back 1963 01:31:07,671 --> 01:31:09,298 most of the rights you just listed 1964 01:31:09,298 --> 01:31:11,049 even if we keep this Constitution? 1965 01:31:11,049 --> 01:31:13,468 -Yes, I absolutely agree with you. -Oh, okay. 1966 01:31:13,468 --> 01:31:16,263 That is, that is why I think we have to do the-the-- 1967 01:31:16,263 --> 01:31:18,307 That's why I don't think that our basic human rights 1968 01:31:18,307 --> 01:31:21,059 can be left up to the whims of a partisan court. 1969 01:31:21,059 --> 01:31:22,269 It's why I think we have to do 1970 01:31:22,269 --> 01:31:24,104 the hard work of passing amendments, 1971 01:31:24,104 --> 01:31:26,523 even if they don't always work, even if it takes time. 1972 01:31:26,523 --> 01:31:28,233 We don't have time. How long is it gonna take? 1973 01:31:28,233 --> 01:31:29,443 How long is it gonna take 1974 01:31:29,443 --> 01:31:30,819 to write a climate change amendment? 1975 01:31:30,819 --> 01:31:34,031 -At this rate, we'll be extinct! 1976 01:31:34,031 --> 01:31:35,949 I-I hear you, but I don't think it's gonna take longer 1977 01:31:35,949 --> 01:31:37,743 to-to write that amendment than it will to write 1978 01:31:37,743 --> 01:31:39,661 -a whole new Constitution. -Okay. 1979 01:31:39,661 --> 01:31:43,957 Out of 4,500 words and 27 amendments in the Constitution, 1980 01:31:43,957 --> 01:31:45,792 is the word "women" even mentioned once? 1981 01:31:45,792 --> 01:31:46,793 -Time! 1982 01:31:46,793 --> 01:31:49,046 -No, no, but I... 1983 01:31:49,046 --> 01:31:51,173 Each side will have one minute to conclude, 1984 01:31:51,173 --> 01:31:52,758 starting with abolish. 1985 01:31:55,219 --> 01:31:57,512 Being a young girl in modern America, 1986 01:31:57,512 --> 01:32:00,182 I never really thought about the Constitution that deeply. 1987 01:32:00,182 --> 01:32:02,017 I had other things to think about: 1988 01:32:02,017 --> 01:32:05,145 friends, conspiracy theories, food and Netflix. 1989 01:32:06,480 --> 01:32:08,649 I now realize that the Constitution's harms 1990 01:32:08,649 --> 01:32:10,359 outweigh its good, and this is the reason 1991 01:32:10,359 --> 01:32:12,110 why we need to get rid of it. 1992 01:32:12,110 --> 01:32:16,156 The Constitution was a radical, upstart, visionary document 1993 01:32:16,156 --> 01:32:17,783 created by passionate people 1994 01:32:17,783 --> 01:32:19,910 like James Madison and Gouverneur Morris, 1995 01:32:19,910 --> 01:32:22,287 who were trying to envision a new-- google him-- 1996 01:32:22,287 --> 01:32:24,623 -who were trying to envision... 1997 01:32:24,623 --> 01:32:26,625 who were trying to envision a new beginning 1998 01:32:26,625 --> 01:32:28,418 and a framework for making change. 1999 01:32:28,418 --> 01:32:31,755 But today it is being used by a small segment of the population 2000 01:32:31,755 --> 01:32:34,299 as a conservative force to prevent change. 2001 01:32:34,299 --> 01:32:36,051 The farther we get from its inception, 2002 01:32:36,051 --> 01:32:37,928 the less it speaks to who we are now. 2003 01:32:37,928 --> 01:32:40,055 This document is old and arthritic. 2004 01:32:40,055 --> 01:32:42,683 I am one of this generation's founding daughters 2005 01:32:42,683 --> 01:32:46,019 telling you want I want for the rest of my life. 2006 01:32:50,816 --> 01:32:53,235 I want a document that takes action on climate change, 2007 01:32:53,235 --> 01:32:55,570 that believes health care is a human right, 2008 01:32:55,570 --> 01:32:57,698 -that protects gender equality 2009 01:32:57,698 --> 01:33:00,909 and says that education is a fundamental pillar 2010 01:33:00,909 --> 01:33:02,953 for our society. 2011 01:33:06,248 --> 01:33:09,501 So join me, join me in making a new document 2012 01:33:09,501 --> 01:33:11,503 -that protects us all. 2013 01:33:11,503 --> 01:33:13,755 -Thank you. 2014 01:33:18,427 --> 01:33:21,722 Judges, the truth is I totally agree with my opponent. 2015 01:33:21,722 --> 01:33:24,057 -I believe 2016 01:33:24,057 --> 01:33:25,600 that to have a neutral Constitution, 2017 01:33:25,600 --> 01:33:27,602 a negative rights Constitution, 2018 01:33:27,602 --> 01:33:29,187 means that we have a Constitution 2019 01:33:29,187 --> 01:33:31,982 that simply perpetuates the status quo, 2020 01:33:31,982 --> 01:33:36,862 which means that it perpetuates white supremacy and misogyny 2021 01:33:36,862 --> 01:33:39,031 -and violence. 2022 01:33:39,031 --> 01:33:41,658 I wish we could get rid of this document 2023 01:33:41,658 --> 01:33:43,577 and make a brand-new Constitution 2024 01:33:43,577 --> 01:33:45,579 exactly like the one she describes. 2025 01:33:45,579 --> 01:33:48,165 I just, I do not believe that there is a way to do this 2026 01:33:48,165 --> 01:33:49,791 without putting the most vulnerable people 2027 01:33:49,791 --> 01:33:52,169 in this country in danger. 2028 01:33:52,169 --> 01:33:54,671 -I also... 2029 01:33:54,671 --> 01:33:56,840 I also don't think democracy is something that just happens 2030 01:33:56,840 --> 01:34:00,469 to us because we magically change a piece of paper. 2031 01:34:00,469 --> 01:34:04,097 Democracy is something that we have to make happen, 2032 01:34:04,097 --> 01:34:05,891 that we have to fight for, 2033 01:34:05,891 --> 01:34:09,603 that we have to enact every single day! 2034 01:34:09,603 --> 01:34:14,024 Judges, the great civil rights activist Diane Nash said, 2035 01:34:14,024 --> 01:34:16,860 "Freedom is, by definition, people realizing 2036 01:34:16,860 --> 01:34:18,612 they are their own leaders." 2037 01:34:18,612 --> 01:34:21,448 So, you know what? Let's pass a climate change amendment. 2038 01:34:21,448 --> 01:34:24,910 Let's pass the Equal Rights Amendment! 2039 01:34:24,910 --> 01:34:26,661 -Or you know what? 2040 01:34:26,661 --> 01:34:29,623 Better yet, let's run for Congress ourselves! 2041 01:34:29,623 --> 01:34:31,666 Rosdely Ciprian, I am ready 2042 01:34:31,666 --> 01:34:34,461 to start knocking on doors for you! 2043 01:34:34,461 --> 01:34:36,338 -Pandering! -That... 2044 01:34:40,008 --> 01:34:41,676 Fine, you know what? I am pandering, 2045 01:34:41,676 --> 01:34:43,178 -but I also mean it! 2046 01:34:43,178 --> 01:34:45,806 -Thank you! Thank you so much. 2047 01:34:53,855 --> 01:34:58,568 Okay, so... it is time to choose the judge. 2048 01:34:58,568 --> 01:35:00,779 Rosdely will be choosing our judge. 2049 01:35:00,779 --> 01:35:02,197 Let's see. 2050 01:35:03,907 --> 01:35:07,327 I see people looking away, which is how democracy dies. 2051 01:35:07,327 --> 01:35:09,621 -Um... 2052 01:35:09,621 --> 01:35:11,998 -Would you like to be our judge? -Me? 2053 01:35:11,998 --> 01:35:14,709 -Yes. -Uh... Uh, s... 2054 01:35:14,709 --> 01:35:17,045 -Sure. 2055 01:35:17,045 --> 01:35:19,089 -Okay, what is your name? -I'm, uh-- 2056 01:35:19,089 --> 01:35:21,550 -My-my name's Maddie. -Where are you from? 2057 01:35:21,550 --> 01:35:23,760 I'm from Berkeley, California, but I live in New York now. 2058 01:35:23,760 --> 01:35:26,388 -Oh. -Oh, amazing. All right. 2059 01:35:26,388 --> 01:35:28,432 Um, Maddie, do you mind, uh, do you mind standing up for us? 2060 01:35:28,432 --> 01:35:30,100 Do you mind actually walking up to the front 2061 01:35:30,100 --> 01:35:32,060 -of the stage for us? All right. -Oh, s-sure. 2062 01:35:32,060 --> 01:35:33,687 -Um... 2063 01:35:33,687 --> 01:35:36,064 -Park yourself right here, yeah. Very nice. -All right. Um... 2064 01:35:36,064 --> 01:35:38,775 Maddie, as you know, you have a very important decision to make, 2065 01:35:38,775 --> 01:35:42,320 uh, to keep or abolish the United States Constitution. 2066 01:35:43,864 --> 01:35:45,991 Uh, we would love for you to make your decision in silence. 2067 01:35:45,991 --> 01:35:47,367 Don't tell us, and once you know, 2068 01:35:47,367 --> 01:35:48,827 open the corresponding envelope 2069 01:35:48,827 --> 01:35:51,371 and read the official language out loud to the people. 2070 01:35:51,371 --> 01:35:52,914 Uh, that way, it's legal. 2071 01:35:52,914 --> 01:35:54,583 -Uh, we'll be over here, 2072 01:35:54,583 --> 01:35:56,418 so we can't see what you're deciding. 2073 01:35:58,503 --> 01:36:00,964 Okay. I, Madeline, 2074 01:36:00,964 --> 01:36:02,757 on behalf of the audience 2075 01:36:02,757 --> 01:36:05,302 of What the Constitution Means to Me, 2076 01:36:05,302 --> 01:36:08,305 do hereby vote to abolish 2077 01:36:08,305 --> 01:36:11,558 -the Constitution. -Yay! - 2078 01:36:11,558 --> 01:36:14,269 Uh, all right, no. Thank you so much. 2079 01:36:14,269 --> 01:36:16,229 I guess, uh, since you voted to abolish, 2080 01:36:16,229 --> 01:36:18,356 uh, I guess you can keep your pocket Constitutions 2081 01:36:18,356 --> 01:36:20,233 so you have something to read in your bunkers. 2082 01:36:21,443 --> 01:36:23,737 Uh, we are at the end of our evening, 2083 01:36:23,737 --> 01:36:25,947 uh, but Rosdely and I... 2084 01:36:25,947 --> 01:36:28,033 Before we go home, Heidi and I 2085 01:36:28,033 --> 01:36:29,826 like to ask each other a couple questions, 2086 01:36:29,826 --> 01:36:31,828 get to know each other better as people. 2087 01:36:31,828 --> 01:36:34,039 And these questions were left by last night's audience, 2088 01:36:34,039 --> 01:36:36,750 so feel free to leave your own questions on the way out. 2089 01:36:36,750 --> 01:36:39,294 -Um, Terri? -Yes? 2090 01:36:39,294 --> 01:36:41,129 Will you please dim the lights? 2091 01:36:41,129 --> 01:36:42,964 Absolutely. Here you go. 2092 01:36:51,056 --> 01:36:52,641 Okay. 2093 01:36:52,641 --> 01:36:54,643 -Sorry. 2094 01:36:57,729 --> 01:37:01,775 Rosdely, what smell reminds you most of home? 2095 01:37:01,775 --> 01:37:03,735 -Home? 2096 01:37:05,487 --> 01:37:08,573 Probably, 'cause of my Dominican culture, 2097 01:37:08,573 --> 01:37:11,201 mangú, salami, fried eggs, 2098 01:37:11,201 --> 01:37:14,079 which is basically smashed plantains, 2099 01:37:14,079 --> 01:37:17,958 fried sausage and, like, this orange juice 2100 01:37:17,958 --> 01:37:19,918 mixed with milk drink. 2101 01:37:19,918 --> 01:37:21,586 That reminds me of home. 2102 01:37:21,586 --> 01:37:24,089 -I want to eat all that right now. -Yeah, so do I. 2103 01:37:24,089 --> 01:37:26,383 -All right. 2104 01:37:26,383 --> 01:37:29,553 What is the worst fashion trend from your childhood? 2105 01:37:30,804 --> 01:37:33,223 Oh, my God. 2106 01:37:33,223 --> 01:37:34,933 Um, there's... there were so many. 2107 01:37:34,933 --> 01:37:37,185 -Um... 2108 01:37:38,687 --> 01:37:42,816 Uh, very permed hair, the-- I teased my bangs up 2109 01:37:42,816 --> 01:37:45,944 and wore, like, a big permed helmet. 2110 01:37:48,572 --> 01:37:52,033 -Rosdely, this is your last question. You ready? -Yes. 2111 01:37:52,033 --> 01:37:55,328 Uh, Rosdely, what do you imagine your life will be like 2112 01:37:55,328 --> 01:37:57,330 in 20 years? 2113 01:37:57,330 --> 01:38:00,750 I will be 34. 2114 01:38:00,750 --> 01:38:06,047 Um, I want to be a New York Times best seller. 2115 01:38:08,592 --> 01:38:12,220 Oh, and then I kind of want to have a signature look by then. 2116 01:38:15,307 --> 01:38:19,936 Like Doc Martens, business casual pants and a T-shirt. 2117 01:38:30,238 --> 01:38:32,991 And my hair will just go with the flow. 2118 01:38:35,994 --> 01:38:38,872 -That's what I imagine. 2119 01:39:09,986 --> 01:39:12,113 And one of these brilliant young women 2120 01:39:12,113 --> 01:39:14,616 has agreed to join us here tonight. 2121 01:39:23,583 --> 01:39:26,503 Hi. My name is Rosdely Ciprian. 2122 01:39:26,503 --> 01:39:28,546 My name is Thursday Williams. 2123 01:39:28,546 --> 01:39:30,340 I am a recent graduate 2124 01:39:30,340 --> 01:39:32,133 of William Cullen Bryant High School 2125 01:39:32,133 --> 01:39:34,678 and an alum of the Legal Outreach Program 2126 01:39:34,678 --> 01:39:36,680 where I practice constitutional debate. 2127 01:39:36,680 --> 01:39:37,889 -Heads. -Tails. 2128 01:39:37,889 --> 01:39:39,432 -Tails. -Heads. 2129 01:39:39,432 --> 01:39:42,227 -I'll take proposition, abolish. -Opposition, keep. 2130 01:39:42,227 --> 01:39:44,354 -Opposition, keep. -I would like proposition, abolish. 2131 01:39:44,354 --> 01:39:45,814 "This house ought to abolish 2132 01:39:45,814 --> 01:39:47,524 the United States Constitution." 2133 01:39:47,524 --> 01:39:49,067 -Yes. 2134 01:39:49,067 --> 01:39:52,821 The proposition says she's going to make an all-new Constitution, 2135 01:39:52,821 --> 01:39:54,322 but let me ask you this: 2136 01:39:54,322 --> 01:39:56,157 Would you let me go into another room 2137 01:39:56,157 --> 01:39:58,118 and decide all the rules for all of you? 2138 01:39:58,118 --> 01:40:00,161 No, you wouldn't. Let's be honest. 2139 01:40:00,161 --> 01:40:02,372 How many rich, white men who own property 2140 01:40:02,372 --> 01:40:04,749 are still in control of our government today? 2141 01:40:04,749 --> 01:40:06,042 I know, right? 2142 01:40:06,042 --> 01:40:07,794 We will not erase the sins of our history 2143 01:40:07,794 --> 01:40:09,754 by simply tossing out a piece of paper. 2144 01:40:09,754 --> 01:40:11,923 -Especially when this piece of paper... - 2145 01:40:11,923 --> 01:40:14,134 ...is capable of shining a light into our own blind spots. 2146 01:40:14,134 --> 01:40:15,343 Thank you. 2147 01:40:17,053 --> 01:40:18,304 Hey! 2148 01:40:19,764 --> 01:40:21,141 Hey! 2149 01:40:21,141 --> 01:40:23,309 Just a glance at current headlines 2150 01:40:23,309 --> 01:40:26,813 should tell you that this moment really is different. 2151 01:40:26,813 --> 01:40:29,065 The consequences of any of us 2152 01:40:29,065 --> 01:40:31,735 sitting on the sidelines are more dire. 2153 01:40:31,735 --> 01:40:35,655 With that being said, if you want to change a country, 2154 01:40:35,655 --> 01:40:39,868 you need to wake up, get involved, go vote, 2155 01:40:39,868 --> 01:40:43,913 put pressure on your local representatives, protest. 2156 01:40:43,913 --> 01:40:46,624 Matter of fact, no. Let's do it ourselves. 2157 01:40:46,624 --> 01:40:48,376 Let's run for local office. 2158 01:40:48,376 --> 01:40:49,878 Let's run for student government. 2159 01:40:49,878 --> 01:40:51,713 Let's be the change that we desire. 2160 01:40:51,713 --> 01:40:54,215 Let's start with our own personal constitution 2161 01:40:54,215 --> 01:40:55,717 and build our way out. 2162 01:40:55,717 --> 01:40:58,178 -Thank you.