Source: Frazer Harrison / Getty
via BlackAmericaWeb:
Yara Shahidi brought the crowd to its feet at the GLSEN Respect Awards as she warned against an “identity blind narrative” in the struggle for acceptance of all.
“We should all feel deserved and supported in expressing our right to being our whole selves, limited by nothing regardless of ethnicity, gender, identity, sexuality, ability, religion or any other identity that we choose,” the 18-year-old “grown-ish” actress said Friday at a ceremony in Beverly Hills, California. “More than that, the common spaces we must maneuver through should be safe spaces in which our presence and existence are inherently valued.”
In promoting equity, she said, “it is dangerous to promote an identity blind narrative.”
Shahidi explained: “To say that in order to be respected we must be stripped of everything that makes us unique is faulty in its very premise.”
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