00:00When I found out I was being honored by Essence, I looked to these women and honestly all I could
00:13think was, you want to honor me with them? Like these magnificent beings? But that has always
00:21been my struggle. That old familiar friend, doubt. That feeling of I don't belong here and I don't
00:31deserve this as if I'm sitting in a dark room somewhere afraid that someone at any moment is
00:36going to come in and turn on the light and say, how did you get in here? I don't know why I'm so
00:39eager to undermine my own talents. I guess because it feels easier to reduce my abilities than to step
00:45into the greatness of my purpose. I know I know that we are supposed to be strong and powerful and
00:58audacious and we can be all those things but human beings are more complex than that. I am more
01:05complex than that. A lot of the time I feel like an imposter and the thing is it can be scary to get
01:12everything you've ever dreamed of because now I have something to lose. The cost is high and the
01:19responsibility is great and so I just I so desperately don't want to fall short of that and that fear can
01:25be overwhelming. I have been blessed with this opportunity to transcend all limitations and play
01:31the most powerful game of make-believe where we make-believe that anything is possible and I'm struggling
01:39with seeing these possibilities because my own inner critic with his full belly and swollen mouth is
01:45eating up all my joy and belief in myself trying to trick me into thinking that I'm not worthy but in
01:52order for me to survive in this industry and in this world in order for me to thrive I have to stop
01:57believing that the root of my talent is a tree growing in someone else's yard as if
02:09as if the fruit it bears doesn't belong to me. We are living in a world where we watch our culture being
02:17consumed and are left starving for ourselves and I don't want to be hungry anymore.
02:22My inner critic is strong but I know that I am stronger. I can't get rid of him. He'll always be there. A voice in my head
02:34telling me to not even dare to dream for something more that they'll never give you that. Don't bother fighting for this.
02:39But that is exactly what makes me so fierce because even with his voice, his monstrous size filling up the space
02:47underneath my skin, I still choose to try and I still choose to believe. All the evidence of my life thus far
02:55is telling me that this is no accident that I do deserve to be here. And when I was struggling to write
03:02this speech, my little sister said to me quite simply, you have everything you need. And she's right. I have everything I need
03:12because I have her. And I have my other little sister. And I have my mother. And I have my father. And I have all of you. And we all have each other. And as long as we continue to be a shield for one another, support each other and lift each other up and love each other fiercely, we all have everything we need.
03:36So today I have the audacity to stand here, flawed and sometimes very afraid, but boldly making a choice to live brightly, hoping we will all make the choice to live brightly, despite, no, to spite our fears.
03:53And I leave you with this. James Baldwin wrote, if we had not loved each other, none of us would have survived. And now you must survive because we love you. So that is to all of you in whichever way you choose to move about the world. I challenge you to not let others deny you and more
04:23importantly, I challenge you to not deny yourselves. Because you must survive. Because we love you.
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