More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say)

by Elaine Welteroth

I realized that if we aren’t vigilant, we can move through our entire lives feeling smaller than we actually are—by playing it safe, by unconsciously giving away our power, by dimming our radiance, by not recognizing there is always so much more waiting for us on the other side of fear.

I wanted to find my way back into his light more than I wanted to find the light inside me—the light he had dimmed.

Seeing my race generate headlines in 2012 clarified the responsibility that came with this title. It called into focus what it meant for someone like me to assume a decision-making role that informs the kinds of images we see and the stories we tell. If I continued assimilating, hoping to blend in, I would be missing a massive opportunity to represent for communities that never had someone who looks like them championing their stories and their beauty from this seat before. It was time to start owning my superpower.

Instead, it is a process of learning, listening, stripping away the blinders that privilege puts on, and exposing yourself to suffering that doesn’t always affect you in order to act from a place of understanding and empathy.