For me to get here, writing this blog as a black, queer woman took a sacrifice beyond what any history textbook could ever truly put into words. The fight that went into my being a woman with the right to vote, the fight that went into my queerness and my right to outwardly and proudly express that and the fight that went into my blackness and my freedom are ones that I don’t take lightly.
When I think of the people that fought for my right to simply exist as I do, my eyes can't help but fill up with tears and my heart with gratitude knowing that I am living a life that is their legacy. We are the products of decades of resilience and an undying desire for a better world. When we become comfortable in a world filled with injustice and inequality, we are not only being complacent and accepting the nothing we're being given but we're degrading the work that went into fighting those very injustices and inequalities. Let us not settle. Let us not conform.
I am an activist because I refuse to trample and erase the footsteps of my ancestors whose cries and screams we still hear. Because I will not merely accept that this is all we deserve. We must be for the future what the warriors of the past were for us, and we will not settle. We will not stand by while our very existence is neglected. And even when the fight isn’t mine, I will stand behind those who yearn for better. We are evidence of what discomfort, and incessant dedication can do. It seems to have been a seed planted in many of us, and is a legacy that we must not let tarnish.
