My identity is very clear to me now, I am a black woman.
Interpretation
This quote expresses a strong sense of self-awareness and pride in one's identity as a black woman.
Lena Horne's statement reflects her journey towards embracing her identity as a black woman, highlighting the importance of self-acceptance and recognition in a broader societal context. It underscores the significance of acknowledging and celebrating oneβs heritage and the strength that comes from embracing one's true self.
In practice
In a speech about diversity and inclusion, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of embracing one's identity.
It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it. Carry it by the comfortable handles of gratitude for what's positive and that it is not worse, rather than the uncomfortable edges of bitterness for the negatives and that it is not better.
I'm not alone, I'm free. I no longer have to be a credit, I don't have to be a symbol to anybody; I don't have to be a first to anybody.
I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.
I'm still learning, you know. At 80, I feel there is a lot I don't know.
In my early days I was a sepia Hedy Lamarr. Now I'm black and a woman, singing my own way.
I always understood my ancestry, like that of so many others in the Gulf Coast, to be a tangle of African slaves, free men of color, French and Spanish immigrants, British colonists, Native Americans - but in what proportion, and what might that proportion tell me about who I thought I was?
I don't feel I was 'born American,' but my homeland was denied to me after the end of World War II, and I craved something I could identify with. When I became a student at Harvard in the 1950s, America very quickly filled the vacuum. I felt I was American, but I think it's more revealing of America how quickly others here accepted me.
Being South Asian in the U.K. is like being Latino in the U.S., I would guess. It's a bit more hood. You see things; things happen. I was bouncing between worlds. You're acting from a very early age, when you have to code-switch like that. I'm a hybrid, a mongrel. I think many people live that life.
I knew that I was trans when I was three years old. Well, I didn't know 'trans' because I didn't know there was a word for it, but I just knew that in my head and my heart that I was supposed to be a girl.
I must identify myself with Africa. Then I will have an identity.
I'm Colombian and nothing will change that.
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