and i d express thanks not just obviously for the food and the shelter and all the blessings that we ve received, but i d give thanks for my children and all the children that were part of that who are now growing up and have become amazing young people like jerron and kristin. you know, when i say that i have faith in the coming generation, it s not because they don t make mistakes. it s not because they re perfect. i really like what christian talked about when he was talking about his younger sister and then part of the reason in my book i tried to be honest about the mistakes i made is we all make mistakes. the question is do we set up a society in which young people through those mistakes can grow,
that seems out of whack, and maybe are feeling discouraged. i want them to see in themselves the possibility that they can bring about change. they can be agents of making things better in the same way that i did in fits and starts. it took me a long time to learn what i was capable of. but that is part of the process. i know, jerron and christian, you know president obama. you know his story. but i m just wondering if it surprised you to read in the book that he didn t get his act together until the tenth grade. i mean, we look probably later than that. i started thinking about getting my act together in the tenth grade. but i mean, a lot of people, you look at president obama and he s on top of the world, but to know and realize that he didn t
christian, i want to start with you, and ask, what does my brother s keeper mean to you? it simply means just having that brotherhood, the family aspect really. my high school was part of your initiative. right. and we were all brothers in that community. like, the teachers in my school were my play aunts and my play uncles. we didn t think of them as teachers. we really thought of them as family. and my brother s keeper is created a village out of my actual village of my home. i love that. jerron, you have the same experience? absolutely. just piggybacking off what christian said and what president obama said, my neighbor s child is my child. your brother is my brother. your sister is my sister. and you know, just looking after one another, what i have, you have. and just sharing the resources. you don t have mentorship doesn t have to be lateral. it can be horizontal. and doctor, how has my brother s keeper affected the student body in yonkers?
create a better place for my little sister so that she can she can live without having to worry about like politics and she can live without just the fear of making mistakes and not being forgiven for these mistakes that she s making. jerron, what gives you hope? from a spiritual lens i definitely am a man of faith, of god, first and foremost. but i can echo christian sentiments of my mom. living in the shelter, she got pregnant with me when she was 17, dropped out of high school, she could have aborted me. but she took the shelter situation. and my brother is serving with d.c. national guard and i m a second year law student. even before the interview i had her prayer and i was like thank you. 22-odd years ago, i could not be here and made a different decision. i saw on your instagram feed
the reaction to the george floyd killing and the fact that, unlike some of these previous incidents involving the black community and the hispanic community and the police, this was one where you saw outrage, concern, distress and activism across the board, including in a large section of the white community and in towns where there are barely any black people. but they understood, okay, you know what? this is an ongoing problem. we have to do something about it. and that signals the possibility for change, as long as we translate it then into changes in institutional practices and changes in laws and policies. you know, christian, you told us, we talked about this before. you had the talk with your father. and it was so intense, tell everyone what you haven t done