Chris Abani-- Shared Humanity TED TALK

Chris Abani is a poet and novelist from Nigeria. He has experienced imprisonment and torture and has a ton of insight on humanity. I can't wait to find one of his books. He deals with the notion of becoming human. This TED Talk 2008 is full of stories of people and he culminates with the following story. Listen to the talk for this story and other profound thoughts.

“The Ebo used to say that they built their own gods. They would come together as a community. They would express a wish. Then their wish would then be brought to a priest who would find a ritual object and the appropriate sacrifices would be made and the shrine would be built for the god. But if the god became unruly and began to ask for human sacrifice the Ebo’s would destroy the god. They would knock down the shrine and stop saying the god’s name. This is how they came to reclaim their humanity. Everyday all of us here, we are building gods that have gone rampant and it is time that we start knocking them down and forgetting their names. This doesn’t require a tremendous thing. All it requires is to recognize among us every day…the few of that can see…are surrounded by people like the ones I’ve told you. There are some of you in this room, amazing people, who offer all of us the mirror to our own humanity.”

Christ did a 2007 TED TALK too that I found just as compelling.