TED | 难道我不是人吗？对犯罪司法改革的呼吁
演讲简介
这位TED演讲者20出头时在曼哈顿闹事被判入狱，判刑10年，在狱中他和外界的笔友沟通获得救赎。在别人把他当作垃圾时，他感动还有人把他当人甚至当英雄，这些让他重新审视这个社会及法律体系。
演讲精彩片段（节选）欣赏
Twelve days before my 20th birthday, I was arrested for my role in a violent robbery attempt in lower Manhattan. While people were sitting in a coffee shop, four people were shot. Two were killed. Five of us were arrested. We were all the products of Trinidad and Tobago. We were the "bad immigrants," or the "anchor babies" that Trump and millions of Americans easily malign.
在我20岁生日的12天前，我因为涉嫌暴力抢劫，在下曼哈顿区遭到逮捕当时人们坐在咖啡店内，有四个人中枪，其中两个死亡。我和同伙共五人被捕，我们正是特立尼达共和国的产物，人们口中的不良移民，或是让川普和上百万美国人任意中伤的「锚婴」
I was discarded, like waste material --and justifiably so to many. I eventually served 10 years, two months and seven days of a prison sentence. I was sentenced to a decade of punishment in a correctional institution. I was sentenced to irrelevance -- the opposite of humanity.
我就像废物般被丢弃，对很多人而言，听起来很合理，之后我坐了10 年2 个月又 7 天的牢。我被判入监接受10年的牢狱惩罚，我也因此被判定为无足轻重的废物，没有生为人的价值。
Interestingly, it was during those years in prison that a series of letters redeemed me, helped me move beyond the darkness and the guilt associated with the worst moment of my young life. It gave me a sense that I was useful. She was 13 years old. She had wrote that she saw me as a hero. I remember reading that, and I remember crying when I read those words.
有趣的是，在狱中的这几年里，不断收到的信件救赎了我，帮助我从黑暗中与罪恶感里走出来，摆脱我年少无知时，如影随形的暗黑面。这些信件，让我觉得自己并非一无是处。有个13 岁的小女孩来信，她信里提到，她视我为英雄。我还记得阅读这封信，看到那句话时，我潸然泪下。
She was one of over 50 students and 150 letters that I wrote during a mentoring correspondence program that I co-designed with a friend who was a teacher at a middle school in Brooklyn, my hometown. We called it the Young Scholars Program.
她是通信师友计划期间的50多名学生之一，在那期间我书写了150 封信，是我和朋友共同发起的计划，这位朋友是布鲁克林区的中学老师，我的故乡。我们称此计划为「年轻学者计划」
Every time those young people shared their stories with me, their struggles,every time they drew a picture of their favorite cartoon character and sent it to me, every time they said they depended on my letters or my words of advice, it boosted my sense of worthiness. It gave me a sense of what I could contribute to this planet. It transformed my life.
每当这群年轻朋友分享他们的故事，分享他们的挣扎，每当他们画上最爱的卡通人物，然后寄来给我。每当他们说，我信中的只字词组令人获益良多，这都大大提升我存在的价值感。他们让我觉得，我对这个地球还有贡献，也因此改变我的人生。
Because of those letters and what they shared with me, their stories of teen life, they gave me the permission, they gave me the courage to admit to myself that there were reasons -- not excuses -- but that there were reasons for that fateful day in October of 1999; that the trauma associated with living in a community where guns are easier to get than sneakers; that the trauma associated with being raped at gunpoint at the age of 14; that those are reasons for me why making that decision, that fatal decision, was not an unlikely proposition.
因为他们的信件与分享，他们的青春故事，这群年轻人给我认同，也给了我勇气自我坦承，一切事出有因，这不是借口。1999 年 10 月那天会出事，是有因可循，一个拥有集体创伤的小区，在小区里，枪枝的取得比球鞋来得容易，14 岁在枪口胁持下遭到性侵的创伤，这些原因让我觉得，当时会做出那样的决定，做出致命的决定，并不是没有可能的。
Because those letters mattered so much to me, because writing and receiving and having that communication with those folks so hugely impacted my life, I decided to share the opportunity with some friends of mine who were also inside with me. My friends Bill and Cory and Arocks, all in prison for violent crimes also, shared their words of wisdom with the young people as well, and received the sense of relevancy in return.
因为那些信对我意义重大。因为写信、收信，因为与那群年轻人沟通，对我的人生影响深远，我决定将机会分享给我的朋友，我总是惦记着他们，我的朋友比尔、柯瑞和阿罗克斯，也因暴力犯罪入狱，他们曾透过书信，与年轻朋友分享他们的智慧，也从回信里，重拾自我价值感。
We are now published writers and youth program innovators and trauma experts and gun violence prevention advocates, and TED talkers and --and good daddies. That's what I call a positive return of investment.
我们现在是作家、青少年计划创始人，创伤咨商专家，枪枝暴力防治倡导人，也是 TED 的讲者。也是好爸爸。我们就是正向投资报酬的最佳范例。
