Elle Madelyn

         I think that this is the beginning of a more inclusive global movement.  Similar to the movement for marriage equality.  I think people are tired of being put in constraints that say: “This is who you are. Who you will always be. You can only have this.”  Who wants to live in a world where you’re choices are taken away before you can even begin?  Great article.  But I think the author misses that we, are the new voices. I finally stopping turning my head to look behind me, for the mythical Svengali that was going to come along and mesmerize me into the movement ala Martin Luther King or Obama. I finally realized that the quote “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” is directed at me (as it’s directed at all of us). I think that people are realizing that it’s time to speak up. 

I realized that I really don’t talk about race with most of my white friends. It isn’t because I don’t feel comfortable talking to them, it’s because I get tired of talking about something that feels despairing and unchangeable.  I didn’t see the point before, but I do now.   If I never mention how upset or heartbroken I feel over racism, with the people that love me the most how can they _know_ on an intimate level what I feel.  I have a fair amount of gay friends and while we have talked a great deal about marriage equality and social justice, we never talk about how being rejected and discriminated against, make either of us feel.  I wonder if it’s partly because we already know how it feels and don’t have to describe it. 

We freely share our sadness, but rarely our pain.  I wonder why that is?

Josephine Baker, Rainbow Tribe Used Iconoclasm to Protest Racism | The New Republic.