We will rise.

There are protesters in the streets demanding equality. We've seen this before, well, not me but I saw it in school. Equal rights, they taught us, is everyone's right. No matter your religion or race, your size or disability, no matter your gender; you are guaranteed equal rights. But, they forgot to tell me that I don't have the right to love my loves. I don't have the right to join legally whom I chose. I thought we were free. I thought we had the right to pursue happiness.
Not yet, but we will. Will you tell my children why their grandmothers cannot marry? Will you tell them why their grandmother's love is less sacred, less legal, less important than people who love the opposite sex? Will you tell them why, if their grandmother gets sick, why I would have to make choices for her and not her partner, her love? Will you explain to my children and myself why equal is not equal for all? Will you explain to them why in Arkansas same sex partner cannot adopt children or foster them? Will you explain to me why you wouldn't give children to people who want them? Can you?
No?
It's not OK. We will rise to acceptance and understanding love through love.













Still I Rise
 

 
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou