When I was in Elementary School I was truly the minority, I was surrounded by White people, but not just any kind...the kind that farm and ranch from generation to generation (a good o'l boy system). It was a new experience from what I was used to seeing as an inner city child from ther Westside of San Antonio. I definitely had "culture shock."
I never wanted to go back to school, but my Mom did not allow me to run. She put her foot down and told me that "I was just as good as any one else that was at that school." It was on that day that I decided that I WAS GOOD ENOUGH.
I was good enough to be in the same class as my peers.
I was good enough to run for Student Council President. (and win)
I was good enough to take the Gifted and Talented test. (and be placed in GT Classes)
I was good enough to try out for the high school softball team. (and letter 3 out of 4 years)
Sometimes we reach a fork in the road and it is the values that we have been instilled , or even new values that we have picked up along the way, that allow us to look at that fork as either an opportunity for success or an opprtunity to run....still, either way, its an opportunity.
Life is all about opportunities and sometimes we need others around us to remind us to take advantage of them. One of my favorite poems Still I Rise. There is such a powerful statment made that has always resinated with me.
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
~ Maya Angelou
I hope that where ever you are, that YOU RISE.
RISE to the challenge of everyday life, RISE from being a good parent to a great parent, RISE up to those who dont believe that you belong but most of all that you see that you deserve the right to RISE.
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