Robin de Jesús Receives the HRC Visibility Award [Video]

The HRC Visibility Award recognizes LGBTQ+ individuals who are living open and honest lives at home, at work and in their greater community. These attributes align with HRC’s mission of creating a country that inspires and engages all Americans to work toward ending discrimination against LGBTQ+ citizens and realizing a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

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please help me welcome tonight’s
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visibility award honoree robin de jesus
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[Applause]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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hey
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what up loves blessings mihinthe
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word
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thank you very much for that warm
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welcome i really i really do appreciate
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let me act like i’m not short okay
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um
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thank you so much sarah for that intro
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as well and for the video and hrc for
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having me
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it really means a lot i was um
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i’ve just been thinking a lot lately
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i’ve been the last couple of months i’ve
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been doing a lot of press for tic tac
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boom
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and uh one of the things that’s been
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making me laugh is
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the amount of like seemingly
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inappropriate movies and television that
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my parents allowed me to watch
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right so please don’t judge them
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um but i remember i’m pretty sure i was
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in kindergarten the first time i saw the
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movie the color purple
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and my sister was in the eighth grade
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and
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she had to do she was supposed to read
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the color purple and then write a report
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on it
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naturally it was the night before the
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report was due
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she ain’t right it
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so now we have to watch the movie so she
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can write a report on it and i’m in
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kindergarten and i sat my my parents
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thought you know what
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it’s this is for school work so i’m sure
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we can all watch this movie as a family
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and i sit down on my uh at the foot of
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my sister’s legs on the couch they’re
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hanging over
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and
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i will never forget
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the look on whoopi goldberg’s face as
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silly
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when margaret avery as suge avery
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reaches over and kissed her
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and that beautiful grin
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just shined on whoopi
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and as a kid i i thought to myself i
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feel like this is the first time since
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her sister’s disappearance that celie
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feels seen
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somewhere around that same time
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another film i saw was white man can’t
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jump
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and a bomb movie by the way all of these
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are bomb references
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um
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and i’m introduced to rosie perez
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a proud
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afro-puerto rican woman from a
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working-class background who has no
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tolerance for the patriarchy and is
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gonna be on jeopardy
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okay
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and she she looks like my cousin teresa
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she sounds like my cousin angie
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and i’m young but i’m fully aware of the
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fact that rosie’s presence provides me
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with a sort of comfort she’s like a
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she’s like a bomb for a puerto rican
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child unaware of colonial constructs but
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already eager to disrupt them
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i knew
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the person that rosie was playing and i
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knew she existed in real life
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but i had never seen her on screen
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what i hadn’t seen yet was a queer
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latine person latinx latino latina
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navigating the world
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and it was a few this was a few years
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before
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you know we all got to know wilson cruz
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that beautiful man who is my dear friend
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and i love and adore yes give him love
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please
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my fellow body
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my penchant for all things drama
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inappropriate continued with an mtv show
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called the real world real world san
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francisco keep in mind i’m probably like
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six
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um so i’m watching
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real world san francisco and i’m
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introduced to pedro samora
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a 21 year old who happened to be a cuban
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refugee
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was a full-time aids educator and
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happened to be gay and hiv positive
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pedro was
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everything
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he was a disrupter working on behalf of
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love and healing he was unashamed proud
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funny gentle i hope that no kids here he
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ain’t take from nobody
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his commitment ceremony to his partner
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sean sasser was the first fight ever
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between seen between a cis man oh it was
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the first
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commitment ceremony had ever seen that
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wasn’t between a cis man and cis woman i
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didn’t even know that that was possible
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but as a kid i thought
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noted
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years later i’m in high school and i
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discover musical theater
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i’m addicted immediately i want to do it
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for the rest of my life
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but i don’t know anyone on broadway
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musical theater that looks like me and
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presents like me and to make matters
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worse
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i had this this vocal coach growing up
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who verbatim said to me
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you’re short puerto rican you’ll never
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make it in musical theater become an
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opera singer where no one cares what you
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look like
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bless her
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um
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she
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that was her stuff but as a kid i saw
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her as my elder so i assumed that she
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must be right
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luckily
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years later i’m in high school
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and
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i discovered jonathan larson the writer
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creator of random musical
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and i knew rant cuz like we all know
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seasons of love ones on glory random
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songs from it but i had never taken in
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the show art the the cast recording so
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i’m with the theater outcast someone
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hands me the double disc set and i look
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at it it’s the words rent in the middle
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and it’s a bunch of black and brown and
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white folks coexisting and little
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squares like the brady bunch
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and they’re in their 20s working class
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folks wealthy folks
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poor folks and i think
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oh
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i didn’t know that we had space here i
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was made to think that it didn’t exist
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noted
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today i’m here
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to accept hrc’s visibility award
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and i gotta say thank you whoopi thank
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you margaret thank you rosie thank you
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pedro thank you sean
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thank you jonathan larson
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[Applause]
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your visibility liberated me thank you
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for affording me the feeling of safety
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even if only for a moment because those
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moments allowed me to see myself
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unashamed and allowed me to recognize
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myself as love as a child of love and we
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should all know that feeling
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i realize how privileged i am that for
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whatever reason the universe decided
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that i get to be in the position of
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paying forward what they did but i’m
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really grateful that i get to just be a
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part of that collective consciousness
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that desires safety and protection for
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all of us
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but i also believe that this
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organization proves you don’t have to
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come from a privileged background to
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participate that it is open to all of us
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so i want to just thank my my family my
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friends my creative and my spiritual
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communities my tic tick boom family and
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all of you here today
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and i i just want to acknowledge we’re
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all in a very raw and very real state
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these days and we have been for a minute
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and i would like to offer an offering um
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i think in a world of social justice
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fatigue
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we all kind of want to bow out and i’ve
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said this before but
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i feel like it’s important that we also
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lean into self-love and recognize when
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we need a moment to bow out for that
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health and then come back but like we
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need you all to come back
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we we really need y’all to come back
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jonathan larson had this beautiful
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saying this question he always asked in
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his work which was fear or love which
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are you choosing and i often find that
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when i’m spiraling and feeling like
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really really rough i’m probably leaning
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into fear which my ego loves and i just
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talked about myself the whole time so
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y’all know i got one
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um
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but
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when i center love
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i instantly remind myself that i get to
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be a part of a we
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and there’s something about the
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centering of that collective
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that this is not to reek of toxic
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positivity but right now i think we need
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that to sustain you know what i’m saying
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so if you can in those moments of fear
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and of doubt remember and affirm love
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and remember how lucky we are that we
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get to be a part of a generation that
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welcomes healing and protection for all
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of those represented here today thank
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you multiple blessings hrc
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for blessing me all day every day thank
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you

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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