Choosing Joy Ambition and SelfLove

[Music]

hi

my name is kia brown i am a journalist

author and screenwriter growing up there

was nothing i loved more

than going to the park up the street

from my grandmother’s house

i went with my twin sister leah and my

cousins

we’d run through what we called a field

of grass

pretending that it was a short cut to

the park when it really wasn’t

at the park we would do things like

swing on swings

learn boondoggle we would take field

trips to the other parks to visit the

other kids

it was one of the most exciting times of

my life

i loved being there and being around my

family

and the friends i made when the park day

was through

we run back through that grass slot to

my grandmother’s house

with grass stains on our clothes and

laughter on the tips of our tongues

i grew up as a kid who believed she

could do

whatever she set her mind to that was

thanks to my mom

hi mom she bought me

every rollerblade every roller skate and

every bike

that my twin sister leah had and my

older brother had

let me be clear i can’t ride a bike

i can’t roller skate and i certainly

can’t rollerblade

but i appreciate her confidence in me

nevertheless

i was a kid full of joy i thought life

was full of possibility

my cerebral palsy was the last thing on

my mind

in fact i had no concept of what

disability was

no one ever brought it up and everyone

treated me just like i was

everyone else i was and i

am a dreamer as a kid

i dreamed about a prince falling in love

with me like he did brandy

and rogers and hammerstein cinderella

i dreamt of the possibility of story in

the 90s remake of annie

which is my favorite and i’m a little

biased but i think it’s the best

it starred audrey mcdonald’s and i was

again

floored when i watched the rap and

rhyming special voiced by whoopi

goldberg

watching those things and being able to

see those people live out the dreams

i had for myself allowed me to dream

bigger

by the time i got to high school i was

dreaming about being on red carpets

with reese witherspoon and mindy kaling

long before they ever starred

in a wrinkle in time together i

let my dreams carry me through most of

my childhood

i was a dreamer until the age of 12.

that’s when everything changed for me

when i was 12 a classmate

in the cafeteria began making fun of me

and my limp you know i walk with a

visible limp

and he began making fun of it like it

was a joke

the thing is i didn’t know what was

happening my friends

defending me was what alerted me to what

he was doing

i’m so grateful that i had friends

willing to defend me even at that age

when you’re just trying to figure out

who you are and not make too many

mistakes along the way

so grateful for them and it really made

me think you know what

was wrong with me that he could ever you

know think anything bad or make fun of

me

again i grew up as a kid not even

realizing she was disabled as all

because everybody treated me the same

way

as my siblings as my cousins as anybody

in the neighborhood

and so i made some silly excuse and said

i had to use the bathroom

and i went to the bathroom watching

myself walk for the first time in the

mirror

and i started to cry because i had no

idea

that i was limping at all i had no idea

that i was different and that that

difference somehow meant that i was

worse

or something to be made fun of and

the entire time i thought of the way he

made fun of me

and that played in the back of my mind

and it sounds so dramatic

but that day really changed me for the

rest of my life

because i began to resent myself i began

to be angry at my body and at god

for the way he created me i began to

hurl insults at myself and call myself

names under the guise

of protecting myself you know getting

ready for war

my insults were my armor but the only

person i was hurting was myself

i didn’t know that yet and so i spent

the rest of middle school

high school and college doing that work

of hurting myself to help

myself and while i was hurting myself

and hurting the ways in which

i was made by god i

absolutely was loved by my family and

friends

they carried me through that time and i

didn’t know

then but the idea that i was worthy of

love

was just so foreign to me they gave me

more love than i ever thought was

possible

more love than i ever thought i deserved

because i was so sad

and so depressed and i didn’t think that

i deserved to be alive

and so by the time i got to college i

was meeting

new friends connecting with my old ones

and my family

and i was hoping again for that love

that was romantic for that prince to

come and save me

for that person to say hey kia you’re

good enough

that kid in the cafeteria years ago he

was wrong about you you’re perfect

just the way you are i didn’t get

that wish that hope that dream

but what i got was something just as

beautiful just

as important just as necessary

my ambition i have always been an

unapologetically ambitious person

there is such a stigma around ambition

this idea that we should both be weary

of it and make sure that we’re not

showcasing too much of it because

we don’t want to alienate other people

my ambition got me to where i am today

my ambition and my drive to see more

for myself to figure out who i wanted to

be

got me here i am a firm believer

of speaking things into existence i

spoke

two books a today show appearance a new

york times byline

an event with roxanne gay who is one of

my absolute heroes

i spoke a netflix byline i spoke

so many things into my life through

my ambition and so i’m never going to be

apologetic about it

i am never going to tell anyone

especially you

women in particular women of color that

you should hide your ambition and you

should

make sure that you’re never talking

about what you want because for me

in my life so far talking about what i

wanted

and dreaming about and working toward it

got me to where i am today and i know

it can get you to where you want to go

in 2013 with my ambition

until i graduated college and i believed

that i was going to walk out of my

college

hallways and into the job of my dreams i

was going to be the next great reporter

really focusing in on hard news and

tough subjects i wanted to be the kind

of person

that i saw on tv that i so admired

well that ambition and that confidence

was great for me

but it didn’t get me a job in fact i

spent a year

getting nothing but rejections i spent a

year

getting nothing but no responses

sometimes

and so i turned to the internet

because as a millennial i love the

internet and what i did

was i started telling my stories online

i started talking about what it meant

for me

to be a black disabled woman and what it

meant for me to love pop culture

and be unsure of the ways in which it

doesn’t love me back

and surprisingly my career took off i

began

publishing in dream after dream

publication

and making my wildest dreams come true

through my written work and so i started

to see the worth

in that work but i didn’t see the worth

in me yet

so by now i bet you’re wondering how i

did it

how did i learn to live when i spent so

long

ready to die well

the key here is effort i began

saying four things that i like about

myself in the mirror

four because four is my favorite number

and again

because four felt like the most

low stakes possible number i would say

things like

today kia i like your eyebrows and your

nose

and your toes and your shoulders just

anything to get me through that day

something to compliment myself

to counteract any negative thought that

was inherently easy for me to access

and so i want to tell you today what i

like about myself

i like my smile my passion

my desire to see a world in which

disabled people

are fully respected and understood

and given the room to be who we are in

our mainstream social medias

and in our mainstream culture at large

i know that four things sounds really

cheesy

but i highly suggest it so

with my four things i began to see the

worth

in the writer writing these things that

i was so proud of

and every single day i did this work and

in 2016

one by the time we got to the end of

2016 i should say

we were in a place of feeling good and

happy

that we were waking up every day and so

by february 2017

i wanted to celebrate and i did so by

creating

a hashtag called hashtag disabled and

cute

and that hashtag ended up at the end of

a tweet with four of my favorite photos

i posted them very quickly because i’m a

writer who was always on deadline

and i left twitter by the end of the

week we were viral

and then by the end of next week we were

global again

i did this to celebrate finally feeling

good in my body

but what happened was i felt like i gave

disabled people

enough permission to feel like they

could celebrate themselves

with all that they are in every aspect

of their life

no matter what walk of life they are in

and so for me the biggest thing that

happened with that hashtag

was fostering a community of people

ready and willing to start their own

journeys towards self-love

later that year i would meet my literary

agent hi alex

and we would craft a proposal of essay

collection

about blackness and womanhood and pop

culture about my life so far

and then that collection would go on to

sell and by august 2019

my book the pretty one was out

in stores everywhere and i began talking

to readers

about their own journeys towards

self-love and i’ve been talking about

how it is important that we try and we

start somewhere because that is what

we’re waiting to do

start somewhere i want to tell you what

i told

a couple of readers along the way after

my events

after i said things that i like about

myself

the morning of not everything is going

to be perfect

and sometimes we don’t know where to

start but again

trying is key here i’ll give you your

first

two of your four things that i want you

to say when this video is over

one clearly you have great taste and

video content because you’re watching

this

thank you two you

are a person who makes someone smile

someone in your life is so

happy that you choose them every day

whether it’s your friend a loved one a

family member

your boyfriend your girlfriend your

partner whatever there is someone in

your life

so happy that you woke up this morning

even if it’s you great now you only have

two of your own to think of i want to

leave you with this

joy is not always a guarantee

not every day will be happy will be fair

we’ll be just

will be exciting we’ll be even

just ordinary sometimes we will have

days where we feel low

and everything is hard maybe we’re

having a hard day at work

or at home or at school maybe life just

feels unfair

but what i’ve learned is this saying

four things

trying to make sure that you’re betting

on yourself along the way

helps immensely because even though it

will feel weird at times

uncomfortable or silly even i promise

you

no one has to know you’re doing it and

you’ll feel better

every single day having that task in

mind

we are not free truly until we are all

free

and it is our duty our joy

and our job to make sure that we are

fostering

ambition hope and joy

in ourselves and in others

i fully believe that who you are

and who you’re going to be will be

but the best versions of yourselves but

you have to get there

you have to keep going keep fighting and

keep moving

and remember that your hope

your joy your dreams and your happiness

matter and you have to let them meet you

where you

are in whatever form they suit you

i am rooting for you let’s keep going

thank you so much