Why can't black women on stage tell stories that can affect white men in the audience?
Danai GuriraRead
I'm not only a person of color, I'm also a woman. And I'm not only a woman, I'm also a woman from the Third World. All those elements put together means I have a lot to do.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the intersectionality of identity and the responsibilities that come with it.
Danai Gurira's quote highlights the complexities of identity, particularly as a woman of color from the Third World. By acknowledging these multiple layers of her identity, she underscores the unique challenges and responsibilities associated with advocating for change and representation in society.
In practice
This quote can be used during a panel discussion on diversity in leadership roles.
Why can't black women on stage tell stories that can affect white men in the audience?
I want to see women of African descent shine.
There’s a saying in Africa, if you give a woman empowerment, you empower a community, you empower men, you empower man. When women become empowered and live in their strength it’s beneficiary to others, and I think as young women today we sometimes forget that we are standing on the struggle of other women. Those women had to stand up to make a change, and they were not popular, and now we’re making them unpopular again.
I work with writers whom I believe to be true storytellers. And because I'm a writer, I pay very keen attention to their vision. I find that so fueling creatively because, in telling those stories, you use everything you've got. You come away with battle scars. It's gratifying and invigorating.
I often feel like a nutty professor, like I'm going to try this experiment and see if it works. My hypothesis is, people in the West can absorb African women stories without any shaken or stirred mixer. It can come directly from the source.
You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay? Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.
After the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the shutdown of much of New York City by Sandy in 2012, and now the devastation wrought on Texas by Harvey, the U.S. can and should do better.
When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
For one cannot change, that is to say become another person, while continuing to acquiesce to the feelings of the person one no longer is.
If you walk into a room, and there is no one that's not like you there, whether it's a woman or a person of color, anyone that's different from you, you should be able to say this is a problem. We need allies in that room to say that video, this room, this company, these ideas, this film, this whatever, this is not right - this is not good enough.
The Koran was revealed at a time of great change in the Arab world, the seventh-century shift from a matriarchal nomadic culture to an urban patriarchal system.
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