USF St. Petersburg’s annual TEDx is a smaller scale, community-focused version of the well-known TED talks. About 50 people attended the event on Apr. 11. Dinorah Prevost | The Crow’s Nest
By Dinorah Prevost
Lexi Bishop teared up a bit during her TEDx talk.
Partly because of her topic — mental health. Partly because of her mom’s reaction in the audience.
“I looked up and saw my mom’s face, and it wasn’t something I had prepared for in rehearsal,” Bishop said after her talk. “To look out and see that she was sitting there proud as can be… struck a chord in my heart.”
Bishop detailed her struggles with mental health since her senior year of high school. She said she never spoke about something so personal in front of an audience before.
And the freshman biology major was the first person to present.
Bishop was one of six speakers at this year’s TEDx event. Hosted by the Office of Leadership and Student Organizations, USF St. Petersburg’s annual TEDx is a smaller scale, community-focused version of the well-known TED talks.
About 50 people attended the event in University Student Center ballrooms on April 11.
Albert Moreno, a graduate student, spoke about society’s perceptions of people with criminal records. He said the negative stigma they often receive prevents them from working certain jobs and living in certain places.
Moreno has faced that stigma firsthand as a convicted felon.
“I was denied the opportunity to work a landscaping job I found on Craigslist. I was denied an opportunity to work at Walmart for a midnight shift,” he said.
He was initially denied admission to USF St. Petersburg because of his record. He had earned his associate degree from St. Petersburg College and eventually needed to be vouched for to get into USF St. Petersburg.
Tristen Johnson talked about her experiences as a black woman working in higher education.
Last semester, studying for an exam for her doctorate, she came across the term “gendered racism.” Now assistant director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Johnson used the phrase to describe her time at a mostly white university in an all-white office.
At first, she dealt with microaggressions: regular, brief insults toward someone based on race, gender and other identifiers.
“I was asked to monitor the trash at my colleague’s event. My supervisor would often tell me that he was ‘afraid of me,’” Johnson said.
Then a co-worker said Johnson allegedly once had a “sexually inappropriate conversation” in her office. A series of events stemming from that incident landed Johnson on paid administrative leave. She believes the situation was unjust and based on her race and gender.
Johnson said black women often feel “isolated, unseen and unheard” in the workplace. They are also underrepresented in student and academic affairs at universities, she said.
But in moving forward from that experience, she remembered “the words of the great philosopher, Beyonce Giselle Knowles-Carter.”
Behind Johnson, to her left, a screenshot of Beyonce’s music video for her song “Formation” popped up on a screen, the singer clad in all black.
The lyrics read, “Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper.”
The presentations from TEDxUSFSP will be posted to the TEDx YouTube channel later this year. LSO was unable to provide a specific date.
