“ Growing up in the Western world, there are so many times where I'm like, Oh, I'm not white. My name is not that easy to say. I'm not as relatable as a white person. ”
“ You're trying to take all this misunderstanding and loathing, and you're trying to turn it into love, which is the wonderful thing that happens when you're trying to make music out of the rough, hard, bad things. ”
“ For the longest time I was trying to be white and fit in, that's also fine at some points in your life, I had to do that to survive in certain spaces. ”
ContextWritten while Lorde was living with cancer. She meant survival as resistance, not self-care as a treat.Read More: Black Literature
Their StoryPoet, essayist and librarian who described herself as 'black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.' Born in New York in 1934 to Caribbean immigrant parents, she used poetry and essays to name what others left unsaid about race, sexuality, class and illness.Her essays 'The Master's Tools' and 'Uses of the Erotic' reward the full text.See Their Full Story
“ I'm a soccer player, I'm Christian, and I'm gay. Those are things that people might say wouldn't go well together. But my family raised me to be an individual and to stand up for what I believe in. ”
ContextRogers, the first openly gay man to play in a major US men's professional sports league, on being all of who he is at once.Read More: LGBTQ+ Voices
ContextCrews, who has spoken openly about surviving sexual assault, on redefining strength as honesty rather than hardness. Included as both a role model and an ally standing with survivors.
“ There is no royal flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it, for if I have accomplished anything in life, it is because I have been willing to work hard. ”
Widely credited to this person; primary source not yet confirmed.
ContextWalker, widely regarded as the first self-made female millionaire in America, on why she rejected the idea of an easy route to success.
Their StoryBorn Sarah Breedlove to formerly enslaved parents in Louisiana in 1867, she built a line of hair care products for Black women into a business empire, becoming widely regarded as the first self-made female millionaire in America. She employed thousands of Black women as sales agents.Biographies by her great-great-granddaughter A'Lelia Bundles are the fullest primary-adjacent sources.See Their Full Story
