Leslie F*cking Jones

by Leslie Jones

Every race goes through something—Black, white, Spanish, Asian… No one is free of fucked-upedness. We’ve all got baggage. But if we could just have some compassion for each other’s baggage, everything could be solved so much differently.

All of this!

And yet I still walked off and thought, I’m going to do comedy. All this means is I have to learn how to do it right.

Yes

It wasn’t the hardest part of my life; it was just a time of my life. You get to be many things in life, even when you are in between. And

Change is going to be, no matter what—that’s the only thing that doesn’t change. Life is a constant: You think you’re not like everybody else? Real talk: You are a replica of seventeen other muthafuckas.

“I love you,” the girl said when she met her. Gaga said, “No, fuck that. You are a human. Look at yourself. This life ain’t about what people say about you. What do you feel about yourself? That’s what matters.”

I remember hearing Diana Ross once say, “Know who you are because if you don’t, they will make you what they want.”

It all goes together to make up who you are. Go through it all—it’s yours. You should love it and own it as yours. It’s what helps you love yourself, and all of you, not just the good parts. You may not be perfect, but you are somebody, and you have a story. You don’t need to be anyone but who you are. So many of us are trying to escape from who we are. Stand in yourself. I swear, if you start that work, you will be amazed to find out you are awesome. There is only one you.

But do you know how many millions of people are saying that? We’ve forgotten that we live here, on this planet, together; the earth is a big-ass apartment complex, and we’re not taking care of the complex.

Grant yourself some grace because life can be short, but it can be long as fuck, too. You wake up every day and you hope you make it back to your bed safely. You hope you get good sleep, and you hope you wake the fuck up. That’s it.

You are Black; you are female… That means that you are going to have to work harder than everybody else. But if you work harder you are undeniable. They can’t deny you. They going to tell you that you are a woman, they’re going to tell you that you’re Black. They will say you can’t make it. Don’t fucking listen.”