The Speech That Changes Your Childhood
When did you hear the speech? What speech do you ask? Although there are some slight variations, mine went like this:
“Crystal, you’re Black, you’re a girl, and we are poor. This means that you are going to have to work twice as hard, do twice as much, and understand that you will only get half the recognition, if any at all, for what you do.”
These are the words of my mommy, to six-year-old Crystal. I’m the one who, despite having the best reading and writing scores in kindergarten, wasn’t getting any awards during the awards night. I’m the one standing in the back of the elementary school cafeteria (in a now poetic like Rosa Parks moment) trying to figure out why I wasn’t in the front of the cafeteria with the award winners.
People of color, women, and those at the intersectionality of so many identities have heard this speech. Michelle Obama discusses the moment she heard it, Gabrielle Union, and all of my friends have a recount of this.
But yall, I’m tired of this speech. I’m tired of what it does to you the first time you hear it. I’ve been paying an emotional tax for my existence since that very moment.
This speech is why I do the work that I do and why I work so hard to live a life of abundance. I don’t want another person to have to work twice as hard just to be recognized when their work is already valid. I don’t want to continue to lose people due to high stress, emotional baggage, and mental illness because their existence was taxed, and they paid with their life.
In other words, there are a lot of us Black and Brown adults who have decided that we can’t do things how we did before. Our ancestors wanted different, and we are going to tear down this system.
