I feel like my career is to speak truth to power, and a lot of times, that sounds like troublemaking. If speaking truth is troublemaking, then yes, I will consider myself a professional at that.
I want people to see my color and my culture written all over me, because I am proud of the skin I'm in. It is an important part of my identity. What I don't want them to do is mistreat me because of it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of embracing and being proud of one's cultural identity while rejecting mistreatment based on it.
Luvvie Ajayi's quote speaks to the deep connection between personal identity and cultural heritage. It highlights the pride one can take in their background and appearance, encouraging individuals to express their unique cultures openly. However, it also addresses the painful reality of discrimination and the desire for acceptance without prejudice. The message encourages a celebration of diversity and a call for respect and understanding from others.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be a powerful addition to a speech about cultural awareness at a community event.
More from Luvvie Ajayi
All quotes →Being able to live without having to be defined by your skin color is the hallmark of privilege.
Through my school years, I learned more about slavery, anti-black racism, and oppression in the U.S., and my blackness could no longer be an afterthought. I started wearing it proudly, and as my consciousness deepened, so did my love for black folks.
You can be tweeting strangers and saying, 'Don't say that,' but are you saying that to your friends? How about your mom? Your boyfriend at the dinner table who says something homophobic? If you're not saying the same things in person that you're saying online, then what are your tweets doing?
When people say things like, 'Oh, I can't find black or brown whatever position it is,' I wanted to be clear that we exist in droves. When I tell people, 'Hey, share your work, share your LinkedIn,' it's with the ultimate goal that somebody on that thread gets hired, or something positive happens.
Being conscious of Global Blackness is knowing that we are not an island of our struggle but a nation of our triumphs. That's blackness to me.
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There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.
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?
The mark of a Scot of all classes [is that] he ... remembers and cherishes the memory of his forebears, good or bad; and there burns alive in him a sense of identity with the dead even to the twentieth generation.
I've always known exactly who I am. I was a girl trapped in a boy's body.
Blackness remains the coat you can't take off.
I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background........Beside the waters of the Hudson" I feel my race. Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon, and overswept, but through it all, I remain myself. When covered by the waters, I am; and the ebb but reveals me again." How It Feels to Be Colored Me