Stories build empathy

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when you hear

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someone's story you can connect with

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them on a way and it makes it so much

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harder for you

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to enact violence on someone or to

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discriminate against someone when you

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know

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their story i've dedicated my life to

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storytelling it's

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one of the greatest ways to transform

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like the hearts and minds of individuals

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to try to bring people together to try

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to make a more loving place

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photography has always been writing

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stories i see a story

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in front of me and i'm trying to figure

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out how to capture it

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history tells us that our stories are

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not considered as valuable or worthwhile

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and that if you want to be a true and

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successful storyteller

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you have to tell the universal story

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which really means the white story

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and i just refuse to do that with the

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1619 project

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and my work in general i really try to

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put

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the legacy of slavery and the

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contributions of black americans at the

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center

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how do we understand how we got here

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today if we don't understand

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the history and the architecture that

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built the society that we live in

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a lot of what drives me in my work is

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creating

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images of people of color of children of

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color