"I feel like I come from a family that is pretty active in social justice type things even when we were in Nigeria. I wasn’t meant to be the type of person to sit on the sidelines and keep quiet. I come from a line of people who speak up when there’s injustice.
“It’s not just about being kind or loving someone. When you do your research, when you learn the real history of our country, that is also love. That is also advocacy. When you take the time to listen to the experiences of those who are different from you, and when you listen to them without defences, and you actually listen to them―and it’s not that you have to feel guilty about your race, or that you have to apologize for your race. It’s recognizing that people are treated differently because of the color of their skin and believing their experiences when they share them with you. And then committing to learning more and making sure that the spaces that you inhabit don’t just sound and look like you. “We need to care more about people. Whether that's disabled people or black people or people that love differently or people of different races, whatever it is, I think it's seeing people as humans. It's seeing the humanity in people. I believe that these things that are happening are beyond just political things. I think that they're very much about humanity, and we will be judged for the way that we treat our fellow humans. And I very much believe that because we are all children of God that we should be treating each other as such, and that includes learning and listening to people that are different from you." |
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