Even if we didn’t know the context, we were instructed to remember that context existed. Everyone on earth, they’d tell us, was carrying around an unseen history, and that alone deserved some tolerance.
We were planting seeds of change, the fruit of which we might never see. We had to be patient.
It’s remarkable how a stereotype functions as an actual trap. How many “angry black women” have been caught in the circular logic of that phrase? When you aren’t being listened to, why wouldn’t you get louder? If you’re written off as angry or emotional, doesn’t that just cause more of the same?
The lesson being that in life you control what you can.
Hearing them, I realized that they weren’t at all smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different.
Bullies were scared people hiding inside scary people.
Dominance, even the threat of it, is a form of dehumanization. It’s the ugliest kind of power.
Let’s invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions, to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us. Maybe we can better embrace the ways we are the same. It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about where you get yourself in the end. There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.
People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.
This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path – the my-isn’t-that-impressive path – and keep you there for a long time.
I have had to learn that my voice has value. And if I don’t use it, what’s the point of being in the room?
Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered.
I began to understand that his version of hope reached far beyond mine: It was one thing to get yourself out of a stick place, I realized. It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck.
I didn’t want them ever to believe that life began when the man of the house arrived home. We didn’t wait for Dad. It was his job now to catch up with us.
Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result.
I grew up with a disabled dad in a too-small house with not much money in a starting-to-fail neighborhood, and I also grew up surrounded by love and music in a diverse city in a country where an education can take you far. I had nothing or I had everything. It depends on which way you want to tell it.
Life was teaching me that progress and change happen slowly. Not in two years, four years, or even a lifetime. We were planting seeds of change, the fruit of which we might never see. We had to be patient.
This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path – the my-isn’t-that-impressive path – and keep you there for a long time. Maybe it stops you from swerving, from ever even considering a swerve, because what you risk losing in terms of other people’s high regard can feel too costly.
The easiest way to disregard a woman’s voice is to package her as a scold.
Empower yourselves with a good education, then get out there and use that education to build a country worthy of your boundless promise.