By Patrisse Cullors
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In today’s video, I’m doing something I’ve never done before! Today I am drawing my life and it is TOUGH ya’ll! I share stories from my childhood, favorite activities, how I got started in activism with The Bus Riders Union and Dignity & Power Now, how I started Black Lives Matter, and my goals for 2021! What videos do you want to see next?
Transcript provided by YouTube:
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all right everybody welcome back to my
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channel
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i’ve been watching everybody’s youtube
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channel and seeing what they’re doing
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and i came across the draw my life thing
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i’m gonna try it i was like i could do
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that
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so i’m gonna do it today and we’re gonna
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see we’re gonna see what i make i know
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it’s gonna be like a bunch of stick
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figures and like
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we’ll see we’ll see what i do and i’m
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excited to
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take you on this draw my life journey
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with me make sure you like
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subscribe and ring the bell
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my name is patrice colors i am an
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artist and a community organizer i was
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born in los angeles
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but in a small suburb called van nuys
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california it’s where i grew up until i
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was about
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11 years old my mom was a single mom and
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there was
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four children i am the third child i
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have two older brothers and then me
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and then my younger sister we all
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spent a lot of time together my mom
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worked a lot so it was really
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like a sibling spending a ton of time
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together in the house
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i had about three childhood homes
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when you grow up poor you don’t really
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have a place where you stay you usually
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are moving around a lot my first
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childhood home was a small apartment on
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delano street
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and van nuys is a two bedroom uh with
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four children
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and my mother the place was roach
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infested it’s like
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whenever i move anywhere the first
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question i asked i’m like do you have
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roaches because i never
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ever ever want to live with roaches
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again then my second childhood home
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was a three-bedroom it was the first
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time where me and my sister
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had our own room and then my brothers
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had their own room and it was pretty big
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for an apartment and there was a pool
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it’s like where i learned how to swim
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my third childhood home was in canoga
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park on
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schonborn and that was a much smaller
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place
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and this like very big building smaller
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rooms
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but i lived closer to the mountains so
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that’s where i learned
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that i loved the mountain landscape i
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loved spending time outside i always
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rode my bike with my friends
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and we would go to like the richer part
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of the valley and go
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eat the fruit off of people’s fruit
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trees i remember
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vividly in the summertime going and
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picking like plums
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and peaches and oranges off of people’s
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front yard fruit trees as part of my
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excursions
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so you do crazy when you grow up in
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the valley because
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there’s not a lot to do we didn’t have a
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lot of money and so
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maybe like one friend would have like a
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really old car
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10 of us would like pile in one car
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someone would like sit in the seat and
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then sit on the floor
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other people would like lay on top of
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each other i know this is so dangerous
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so don’t do it now
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whatever teenagers do not do this like i
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look back and i’m like why was i doing
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that
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but that’s how we got around we would do
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this thing
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in the middle of the valley where we
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would stop at a stop light and everybody
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would get out the car
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and we would run around the car during
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the red light
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because it was just so boring you guys
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so i have these memories of a bunch of
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girls
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jumping out of a raggedy ass car and
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like
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running around it at a stop light and
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seeing how many times you could run
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around it and then like hopping back in
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the car when the light turned green
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and then you know heading out i also
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worked at rite aid that was my first
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job ever i was 16 years old it was
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awful
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i spent most my time stocking the
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shelves i was
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very bad at the register like i would
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always come up short they’d always be
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like
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teresa can’t keep coming up short you
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said it was one thing but then it’s
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another thing
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so i spent a lot of time having the
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stock shelves because they’re like don’t
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put her at the cash register i just
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remember thinking like
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i cannot do this i need to figure out
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what else i’m going to be doing
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my great-grandmother actually told me
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one day she said i want to put you in
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dance school when i
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was 11 years old i started taking dance
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classes i then started dancing at a
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dance company
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called west coast dance theater in
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northridge i got
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real formal dance training and toured
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around the country
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i danced on the big red boat on a cruise
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boat i know
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random but it did and it was so fun
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so exciting i think that was a big
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opening for me because it
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showed me that dance was such a central
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part of my life and art was such a
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central part of my life and that i could
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actually do it it wasn’t just this thing
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i had to do on the side that i can be a
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pivotal part of
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how i created in the world i started
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really learning about activism in high
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school and i knew that i wanted to
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do the work of social justice for the
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rest of my life first organization i
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ever was a part of was called the bus
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writers union it still exists today
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i was a young member i felt like i had
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finally met an organization that was
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looking
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at changing systemic racism systemic
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sexism and it’s where i met a lot of my
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friends
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a lot of my community it’s also the
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place where i started to really
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learn about police violence and prison
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violence
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i started to form my identity as an
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abolitionist
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i left that organization i started my
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local org dignity and power now
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um in 2012 and then one year later i
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started black lives matter
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this year i have some goals i started
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drinking 100 ounces of water
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a day starting january 4th and i’ve kept
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it up every single day and it really
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makes a difference like
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dehydration is awful i really want to
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start reading books again
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i was doing a lot of reading and then
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because of all the work that i do it’s
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hard but i would really love
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to especially read stacey abrams romance
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novels
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i also learned how to do my makeup this
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year in particular when the surge
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happened in l.a and i was like okay i
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can’t really have people in my house
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like that
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thank you y’all so much for hanging out
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with me with
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the draw my life maybe i’ll do it again
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just to remind y’all every monday i’m
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dropping a new video
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most importantly i want you to stay safe
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stay connected and stay educated
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we need you
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
