“No matter where you are from, your dreams are valid.”- Lupita Nyong’o
Validity is such a strong concept. Today, so many people struggle with issues of self-esteem and self-worth because no one provided them with a foundation of personal value. All too often I hear people argue the idea that these are thoughts and emotions that we often have to cultivate ourselves, yet what they fail to realize is that at some point in our lives we were initially taught this concept. Someone somehow made us think or more importantly feel that we were ‘worth it’ and we nurtured that feeling. It is amazing how placing a measure of validity on our being can uplift their psyche and infuse power into words or thoughts spoken and whispered within.
Much of my day to day work is centered on the lives of children; primarily their education. How they are being taught, what they are learning and who is teaching them. I look at the faces of the many men and women that stand before them, many of those faces not resembling their own, and I often wonder who legitimizes our children? These same children come from broken homes and families and seek education as a means to set their dreams afloat. Who give our children the authority to say ‘my dreams are real’? So that when they wake up each and every day to face the demons the reality often places as obstacles they can overcome them knowing that the grace of their dreams are a few feet away? Who provides our children hope with a surreal measure of authenticity sprinkled on top?
As I listened to Lupita’s speech I couldn’t help but think of the students that I work with and for each and every day. Inner city students, families suffering from various socio-economic struggles; ones whose voice have been silenced, others who believe they do not have a voice, and still many more who speak so loudly that the public begins to tune them out due to improper diction. Their dreams have been pushed aside and laid to rest because their sense of validation has been stripped and the power that flutters by hearing a simple “job well done” has gone to past as those words have never been said.
I wanted Lupita’s chocolate skin glow near that bronzed statue at the Oscars Sunday night. I watched her smile shine more brightly than anything that she has ever worn and I gazed as her eyes welled with tears of joy. Not only was that gold statue a win, but as she spoke unto a sea of faces that mostly did not resemble her own, she was reminded that dreams are not mere ideas that float in our minds. They are tangible forces that provide strength and resiliency, even in the toughest situations.