WE ROAR Magazine April 2024 - Magazine - Page 32
"THE BOX TO DECIDE IF I'M VALUABLE OR NOT VALUABLE."
But, at the same time, why are you asking me the
number? Are you asking me because you want to
find a way to discriminate against because I'm
either too young, I'm too white, I'm too female,
whatever it is, right?
advocate for people or maybe for a child even...
It's near impossible to do that until we flip that
internal paradigm. If we’re going to change the
external narrative, we need to change the
internal one is first.
"YES, THEY NEED
TO KNOW THE
BOX TO PUT YOU
IN, RIGHT?"
Because we learn from these experiences. I'm
not there yet, but I'm hoping to someday evolve
to the point to where I look forward to those
obstacles the universe is going to throw in my
path... I do try to be very conscious of trying to
see the silver lining along the way. I am an
optimist. Some people say it's not necessarily a
good trait, but I still think it is. Yes.
Yes, the box to decide if I'm valuable or not
valuable. The same reason why we start every
conversation with, What do you do for a living?
Or, If a child, what do your parents do for a
living? Or, Sorry, with a child, you might ask,
What do you do for a living? Because let me
decide whether or not you're even worthy of
having another word with. I'm sorry. That sounds
very silly. I'm actually a very optimistic person.
I'm from the southern part of the United States.
I'm from Florida. I'll get in my southern draw,
where we say, Y'all. I live in Virginia now, very
southern here. One thing about southern
Americans is that we're genteel. We try to be
real nice. We really do try to be nice to you. We
are known for this. We're known for being nice.
But at the same time, we also, as a woman, I'm
known that I have my place and be quiet, not
Nice girls got to be nice girls.
One of our key values is about being real. It
doesn't mean we can't have optimism. It
doesn't mean we can't laugh and enjoy the
things that we're doing. And yes, there's a lot
of things that need to shift. I think one of the
biggest things, though, I know with so many
people that we've talked with in our
community, off the back of our No More Hiding
campaign and movement, is being able to own
that. Before you can change anything in your
environment, in your life, even if you want to
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I know all about the nice girl thing.
Right. So we have all these boxes we put
ourselves in and society puts herself in. But I'm
realising, especially at that number that I just
said that I was as a senior citizen. I think I have to
be a little bit more brutal, a little bit more not
brutal, but I just got to not be as nice, and I got to
start really calling people out in certain things.
And that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to do it in a
very professional, nice way because I'm a nice
