B Horowitz - What Could Have Been lyrics

[Felicia Horowitz Introduction: Janice Mirikitani] We talk about this bridge that connects and divides And you know we can't do that without people who are committed, dedicated and really, truly understand and care about the causes and injustice And in those causes We have someone who is in our leadership of the volunteers who come here faithfully volunteering every other week And she is very, very connected to the technology community And she makes sure that bridging pillar by pillar continues to occur And we are so grateful for her, because she is a Shero She believes in what we do, she believes in the causes that we espouse and hopefully practice And she herself practices it Her husband Ben Horowitz is also involved This wonderful series called GLIDE Talk She has her own story, and she has her own pa**ion And it is my pleasure to introduce Felicia Horowitz [Felicia Horowitz] Over 50 years ago something amazing happened right here on the corner of Ellis and Taylor Jan Mirikitani and Cecil Williams founded GLIDE GLIDE has been a vessel for social justice helping people from all walks of life to reach their true potential without any prejudice or judgment It doesn't matter here at GLIDE if you are gay, bis**ual, transgender, in fact, even if you are straight we are willing to open up our hearts and accept you too I'm excited to be here today with my friends Van Jones from CNN and Jim Gilliam, the CEO of NationBuilder Their leadership has created modern day media and technology platforms that truly embody the spirit of GLIDE To illustrate the impact of their work, I am inspired to share with you a true story, the tale of two people caught in "the struggle" Have you ever met or known someone that had that “it” factor? That spark When I was young there was a kid in my neighborhood, let's just call him Mike He was my next-door neighbor and a childhood friend, he had that special spark, everyone loved Mike He was witty, cute, smart and super charismatic He was the one person in the hood that everybody knew was going to make it Our neighborhood was a small, African American, working cla** community and the world didn't expect much from us Nobody outside of our neighborhood saw Mike's spark After years of not being recognized and feeling insignificant, although I could still see the fire burn within him Mike slowly drifted to the sidelines of life and now my friend Mike is serving a life sentence in prison Fast Forward to 2014, when I met a young man named Divine, that grew up in the roughest of neighborhoods in Providence, Rhode Island with his own unique “spark” When he was 13, his mother became addicted to d** and she could no longer support him and his younger brother With no help and a family that needed him, he dropped out of school in the 8th grade to support them He got the only job willing to hire a 13 year old kid, he became a street hustler and sold crack Eventually, he added a second vocation, he became a rap artist Through hard work and ambition, Divine succeeded in the streets and the microphone However, his crack dealing landed him in prison, where he spent 10 years of his life But when he returned home from prison, the world had changed dramatically Technology had created the ability to connect with others beyond your neighbhood and show your spark Divine embraced the technological change He quickly jumped on Kickstarter, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook Then one day, he sent a 'tweet' out into the Ether hoping that someone would notice Someone did, and that someone happened to be my husband Ben He saw the potential, he saw the spark I recall Ben coming home from work super excited, I a**umed it was about some newly discovered technology, like Virtual Reality, Crypto Currency, Drones or a brilliant entrepreneur he was going to invest in Instead it was Divine's Kickstarter to record a Rap album and he was going to put $500. on it I responded by saying what, Ben you crazy? But, after hearing Divine's music and seeing his drive, I too saw the spark and decided to support his campaign as well And that small bit of recognition was all that Divine needed to in the words of The Great Philosopher/rapper Drake, Divine went “zero to 100 n$gg@ real quick" He released his album, was featured on Techcrunch, spoke and performed at the Women's 2.0 conference, and is currently enrolled in a program for ex-convicts that landed him in a cla**room at Harvard University His music and story touches people every day as he makes a positive impact in our community One man's potential was lost, while the other's became reality One faces life imprisoned while the other makes a vital contribution to society daily The difference? Mike's had no platform, no hope, while thanks to the Internet, Divine's had a global audience But isn't it great to live in a time where hope has unprecedented reach and because of the information age we live in today 'hope' is now accessible to each and every one of us