Dangers Of Silence Analysis

Keynote speaker, Clint Smith speaks on the “Dangers of Silence” through the reflection of his own failures to tell the basic, everyday truth. When we hear the word danger, we typically think straight of the actions committed by others that are grave and deadly. Mr. Smith, a writer, and teacher brought an entirely new meaning to the meaning of silence. Clint states that the pure act of silence being recognized as serene causes more danger than any good. He teaches the audience that when we are dealing with controversial issues that demand action from the public, we divert ourselves to keep hushed and automatically become muted in order to avoid the issue at hand. Especially when that it is convenient to us. He provokes the audience to not promote …show more content…
Smith speaks not only to the members seated in that room, but to everyone in the world. He expresses the message that now is more than ever crucial to speak up for what we believe in, and to keep in mind your social responsibility to effectively use your voice to speak up for those who need one as it is one of your most powerful tools.
He realized that he had refused to speak up in so many instances he may as well remain silent. He recognizes the moments in his past where he himself had failed to speak up for example walking by a friend who was beaten for being homosexual, ignoring a homeless man, keeping quiet while a woman took away his students dignity to his face.
After listening to Clint's speech on the power of having a voice I began to become more conscious of what we say as well as what we don’t say. Remaining silent can have a ripple effect to our youth and set as an example to following generations. Sometimes the things that need to be said may be uncomfortable but that doesn’t mean that it is unnecessary, I believe having a voice is a very powerful tool/weapon where we should use to broadcast messages that are the most prevalent, prominent and affecting large masses of people in today’s …show more content…
When we hear or see something that we know is not particularly considered right, we tend to stay ignorant and “act” oblivious to the issue in front of us. For example, we may hear our peers/acquaintances speak insensitively towards someone you know on a closer level some people choose to disregard the statement as a whole or nod their heads alongside the accusations in false agreement, hoping the moment steers into another direction. Clint’s message resonates with me because it reminds me of times in slavery where the similar concepts applied here as well. There were several occurrences where if people simply spoke up about the injustice towards colored people there would have been a different story written in our textbooks. The rights of enslaved people were not recognized. Many if not all had to work in harsh conditions with little to no pay at all and often beginning work as early in childhood as possible. While many worked in fields, some also worked indoors. Mostly women did tasks such as laundry, wove cloth, and cooked meals. Men worked as blacksmiths and manual labour. It was not that people of that time did not have access to adequate education in fact as “white upper-class” people they had access to an extensive and thorough collection of knowledge. There is an element of egocentrism involved in many of these cases where people are