Cheryl Lee Ralph

But I have learned something in my life, that there are three things that we all must do in order to believe in ourselves.

Number one, first,

We need to see ourselves.

I mean really, truly, deeply see ourselves for who and what we are in order to believe in ourselves.

I'm a child of the 60s, and that was hard.

Ooh.

In the third grade, I tested out of public school into a fancy private school.

where the only black person I saw every day was the one who looked back at me in the mirror.

I was by myself, and I was all alone.

And the things that were said to me, and I'm not talking about just the kids, but the adults too,

And when I would come home from school crying the ugly cry, my immigrant Jamaican mother would sit me down in front of the mirror and ask me, do you see an N-word?

Do you see a liar?

Do you see a big-lipped monkey?

No!

So dry your eyes, and when you go back to school, remember, you are rubber, they are glue, and every ignorant thing they say about you bounces off of you and sticks to them.

And I believed her.

And it didn't hurt so much.

Because I believed.

Number two.

We've got to think.