2 Days So Great Forever Change Time.
I don’t know what else I can say. I sat among colleagues today watching the inauguration and it was a moment that took the breath of many away. And it’s funny, because I remember as I was watching it that I thought I’d have statements of profundity. (And clearly, I’m not a poet, but try.) But now as I sit here with my laptop appropriately on my lap, I think-yes. It’s time. Even though I’m on the dark side of my 20s, I feel like a child again.
There were years where the system told me I could only be one thing. I never saw someone like me being called a patriot, unless I was enlisted. I never saw someone like me share ideas about major change and be heard. I never saw someone like me, believing in someone like me. Constantly negotiating my character to fit into a place where I could pursue a lucrative life, I now know that I can. And I can because my idea of lucrative has changed, my character unchanged. My profitable future can be found not in the dollar that I earn, but in the instinct I obey. And what is an instinct but a dream with urgency?
Yesterday was Martin Luther King’s Day and we remember his infamous speech, “I Have a Dream.” Dr. King referenced the color of his skin as a barrier to opportunities. And here’s the thing… the color of discrimination always changes. What color are your attributes which are subject to discrimination? Is your color too dark? Is your color too fat? Is your color too poor? Is your color too smart? Is your color too apathetic?
I never really thought that I wasn’t represented until I started to see people represent me. I didn’t see it until now. But that’s the funny thing about change-what changes the most is our shift in perception. I’ve managed to stay in one place, focus my lens and yet, have traveled miles.
So let’s do it. Let’s make a change by being who we are to make humanity something we want to brag about.
