You know who you are.
Do you know who I am?
I am the daughter of a proud man and a strong woman. We are made of thick brown skin and immigrant blood. We have lived from North to South and in between with all kinds of people from all kinds of places. You do not scare me.
I am a sister to four individuals who never really learned to fight, except with watchful eyes and careful words. We can wait for many moons, but when the wait is over, we will not be silent. You do not intimidate me.
I am the reader and watcher and listener of endless stories that tell the tales of the underdog's triumph and the villain's defeat, despite all odds. You do not remove my hope.
I am the child of the most high God, who gives me the strength to turn the other cheek, and wisdom to know when it is time to stand up, or speak out, or to simply shake the dust from my feet and move on from you. You have no power over me.
In spite of all that I am, you will think you have defeated me.
You will meet in secret and speak of dark plans to cut my legs out from underneath me. You will smile before an audience, even as you cut me and watch me bleed. And when I get up again and again, as time heals the wounds, you will walk past me with that terrible gleam in your eye and smirk on your lips because you think I am cowering in your great shadow. You will quite possibly never realize that my silence is only a hopeful show of strength - a precursor to the thing that follows when silence fails.
You will go on with your incredible prejudice and your unfounded hatred. For you and I know that bullies do not just prey on "the weak", but on those who would dare to defy them or differ from them.
Before I opened my mouth to speak, I defied you. How dare I, and who am I to come into this place you call your own, and act as though I belonged there? And what on earth made me think that I was entitled to the same respect and common decency that you were?
That will never change. This place is not only for you but for all. And you and I share the same inherent value, so yes I am entitled to the very same common decency that you are. A difference in color is simply that and nothing more. That fancy piece of paper that certified your education, was not a certification of your intelligence, and a lack of fancy paper on my part is not a lack of mine. I have a mind and a work ethic that can kick your hiney. Means mean very little in the face of real adversity - when you take them all away who can survive?
I can. I have. I always will.
That is why I am unbreakable. You and I both would be better off if you would stop trying.
If you would put the same amount of energy that you put into hatred and bullying into loving and kindness instead, you would find that the world would be a better place for all of us.