“As a black, queer female student of the Atlanta University Center, I must navigate spaces that often require me to choose which identities I being into any given room. In an HBCU setting, a culture that is often cultivated in patriarchy and heteronormativity, position race as the central marginalized identity in discussing matter of oppression.
In the fever of achieving equality, an “oppression Olympics” ensues, denying my lived experiences that are much more nuanced than a linear discussion of just race. Daily, I find personal empowerment is disrupting those systems by consistently bringing all of my identities into space unapologetically. I am not letting the experiences of my full self be denied or silenced. It is my action in greater fabric of resistance done daily by folks by folk who stand at the crossroads of intersectional oppression. It is not enough to just speak out of my blackness, but also what it means to be black and queer specifically, black and a woman specifically, a black woman and queer specifically, and much more. All of those factors make for a truth that disrupts the monolith of my existence that is always being made. I am not just a black student. But a black, queer, radical, femme woman AND more. And It is an act of radical self-love to resist being factored down to any singular category. ” –Lexus