… next season, to celebrate what you’ve achieved, and what your fellow women of color have achieved. And I want to tell you that it is not necessary to fully organize your life as a reactive response to your oppression. You are allowed to identify for yourself, and claim, some of the ease that comes from not constantly thinking about or responding to subordination. I want to suggest to you that claiming that ease — marking an interior part of yourself that is simply free and alive, that does not exist in conversation with persecution or maltreatment — is as powerful as any protest or resistance. It can enrich your life immeasurably, it is a kind of freedom you can only give yourself.
