The fact that I made it to where I made it, when I look at where I came, I think is a message to the world and it's also a message to other young people who come from diverse and underprivileged backgrounds, that where they come from does not necessarily have to define where they are going.
Interpretation
Your background doesn't determine your future potential.
This quote emphasizes the idea that one's origins or socioeconomic status do not dictate their future success or achievements. It serves as an inspiring reminder to individuals, particularly young people from diverse and underprivileged backgrounds, that they have the ability to shape their own destinies and rise above their circumstances.
In practice
In a speech addressing high school students, I might say, 'Remember what Linda Thomas-Greenfield said about not letting your background define you.'
Throughout my career, from Jamaica to Nigeria, Pakistan to Switzerland, I've learned that effective diplomacy means more than shaking hands and staging photo ops. It means developing real, robust relationships. It means finding common ground and managing points of differentiation. It means doing genuine, old-fashioned, people-to-people diplomacy.
Those of us who experience racism cannot, and should not, internalize it, despite the impact that it can have on our everyday lives. We must face it down, every time, no matter whom it's directed towards.
I think countries are now, leaders are now more conscious of the importance of having women engage in their country's development plan. Because again, and I say this over and over and over again, when we invest in women they invest back in their families, they invest in their communities, and they invest in their countries.
The more we elevate people's lives - the more we treat people with dignity and respect and honor their rights and freedoms - the more we discourageand even preventterrorism.
It is unconscionable for Russia to force Ukrainian citizens into Russia, and put them in what will basically be concentration and prisoner camps.
In so many of our communities and countries, racism is endemic. It's built in, like a rot in a frame.
Nelson Mandela represents an enduring example of the human spirit and he proved for eternity that the ideals of democracy and human rights can overcome even the direst of circumstances.
Every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and dance.
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies,_x000D_ _x000D_ In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies.
I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing as though I had wings.
I bring you the gift of these four words: I believe in you.
Girls have to fight against a lot of the same stuff we did growing up... peer pressure, exploitation, etc. But what worries me the most is this trend that caring about something isn't cool. That it's better to comment on something than to commit to it. That it's so much cooler to be unmotivated and indifferent.
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