Pedestal Someone Quotes

You know it's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It's always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works very hard to keep things rolling smoothly; someone else sails along for the ride.

I think you can love a person too much. You put someone up on a pedestal, and all of a sudden, from that perspective, you notice what's wrong - a hair out of place, a run in a stocking, a broken bone. You spend all your time and energy making it right, and all the while, you are falling apart yourself. You don't even realize what you look like, how far you've deteriorated, because you only have eyes for someone else.

The moment you put someone on a pedestal they will look down upon you. The trick is respecting each other equally.

It's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works hard to keep things rolling smoothly, someone else sails along for the ride. Someone who would do anything to keep it the way it was in the beginning.

Love is when someone puts you on a pedestal and yet when you fall, they're there to catch you anyway.' - Tara Daniels

That’s human nature, isn’t it? People want to put someone on a pedestal. Maybe it gives them something to dream about.

Such a disappointment when you defend someone for so long thinking they are different and they turn out to be just like what everyone said.

Don’t put people, or anything else, on pedestals, not even your children. Avoid global labels such as genius or weirdo. Realize those closest get the benefit of the doubt and so do the most beautiful and radiant among us. Know the halo effect causes you to see a nice person as temporarily angry and an angry person as temporarily nice. Know that one good quality, or a memory of several, can keep in your life people who may be doing you more harm than good. Pay attention to the fact that when someone seems nice and upbeat, the words coming out of his or her mouth will change in meaning, and if that same person were depressive, arrogant, or foul in some other way, your perceptions of those same exact words would change along with the person’s other features.

Stormy Llewellyn didn't want a pedestal. She wanted only someone who would look her straight in the eyes and always tell her the truth.

Never place someone so high on a pedestal that if they should fall... you get crushed.

My friends, don't idolize hardship. What you idolize is what your heart will look for and what your heart looks for is what you will have. And don't capitalize on misfortune, because you will always seek out to have capital! Throw away that pride! Don't put sorrow on a pedestal! If you ask me if I would rather have had my sorrows or not, I will tell you that no, I would rather have not had any of them! In the blink of an eye, I would rid myself of them! I have no pride. I don't rely on hardships and sorrows to mold me into someone. I don't allow myself to be dictated. When hardship and sorrow come knocking, saying "We are responsible for who you are today, let us in!" I'm going to say, in a split second, "No you're not! Go away, I don't owe you anything!

I deserve more from you. I deserve more than to be put on some lonely, god-awful pedestal, to be used as an object for your self-flagellation and repentance for God knows what in your past. When someone tells you they love you, you don’t get to say, ‘I don’t deserve your love,’ and think that somehow exempts you from the consequences of rejecting them.

Someone who has come through heartache and maintains wit and charm is far more interesting than someone who has been kept on a pedestal all her life.

Struggling against his weight, reeling backward, I knocked the fishbowl from its pedestal and it crashed to the floor. Goldfish flopping all around my feet, amidst the shards of broken glass. Someone banged on the door. In my terror I let go of the body and it fell back into the tub with a hideous slap and a spray of water and I woke up.

Then you're the one." Allie blinked at him. "The one what?" "The one who loves more." ... "You know it's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It's always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone falls in love first. Someone always puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works very hard to keep things rolling smoothly; someone else sails along for the ride.

Nor is it merely that we can discern in Christ that close union of personality with perfection which forms the real distinction between the classical and romantic movement in life, but the very basis of his nature was the same as that of the nature of the artist - an intense and flamelike imagination. He realised in the entire sphere of human relations that imaginative sympathy which in the sphere of Art is the sole secret of creation. He understood the leprosy of the leper, the darkness of the blind, the fierce misery of those who live for pleasure, the strange poverty of the rich. Someone wrote to me in trouble, 'When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting.' How remote was the writer from what Matthew Arnold calls 'the Secret of Jesus.' Either would have taught him that whatever happens to another happens to oneself, and if you want an inscription to read at dawn and at night-time, and for pleasure or for pain, write up on the walls of your house in letters for the sun to gild and the moon to silver, 'Whatever happens to oneself happens to another.

Oh, yeah?” Grundy cut in. “I happen to know that someone leaked copies of several of those texts to Mundania, including that one, so a whole bunch of people must have seen it!

the higher you put someone on a pedestal the further they have to fall.

Our feelings about menstruation are the image of what it is to be a woman in this culture. While menstruation and the fear of revealing evidence of loss of body control bear possibilities of humiliation for women of which men are not aware, it is humiliating too to be that sex whose voice and presence carry less significance. It is humiliating to speak the same words as a man and have his heard, and not yours. It is humiliating to feel invisible when God gave you a body as solid as his. It is humiliating that women are accorded little dignity unless they are married. We twist these humiliations around, of course, and say it is glorious to have a man fight our battles for us, put us on a pedestal, take care of us. It is, if you enjoy being dependent on someone else.

Whenever a Christian follows authority figures who don’t allow questions about themselves or their direction or teaching, get out and don’t look back. Whenever someone says he knows what’s best for your life, better than you do; whenever someone says that she speaks for God; whenever someone pretends to be anything other than a flawed human being who makes mistakes and sometimes gets it wrong—that person is sitting on a pedestal of his or her own making, and if you don’t destroy it, God will. So many freedom-destroying things we do are connected to an irresponsible decision to allow others to be to us what only God is supposed to be.

He cuts me off, continuing. “I fell so hard for you that I couldn’t even enjoy anyone else’s company, because I had already decided that you were the one. I tried to tell myself that I was holding you up on a pedestal, that you couldn’t be as funny, or beautiful, or amazing as I imagined you were. Before I came to Miami, I had convinced myself that I was wrong for thinking I could be in love with someone I had never met. And then I met you in person, and it turns out I was right. Everything that I thought I felt was real. I fell in love with you all over again.

Someone once said, “Think about the things you’d most hate to lose (outside of your family), and you’ll identify your idols.” These are not only the things we treasure too much but what we’ve likely lost perspective on. We place this stuff on a pedestal that wasn’t built for it. If we’re not careful, TV can become this.

the women we shine a light on—the women we allow to be raised up onto that pedestal—are all forced to become two women: The woman they are, and the woman we all want to believe in. And in crafting stories focused on the real woman behind the legend, I have the opportunity to create someone who is both larger than life and also heartbreakingly human.

When we place someone on a pedestal, we elevate them almost to the status of a god. Our perception of them goes from one extreme to another. This paragon of the ideal either walks on water or is a monster We trust them; then we don’t. They can’t possibly live up to the image we created of them or meet all of the expectations we have because what we want is the fantasy—not the human being donning the costume. We don’t really know the human being behind the fantasy. All the while, we may swear that we love them, but we can’t love someone we don’t see.

Next Ashlynn walked up the stairs. Apple expected the princess to exhibit the same eagerness, but her steps were slow. The large mirrors hanging from posts around the pedestal broadcast images of Ashlynn’s face to the audience. But the mirrors didn’t show the book, so Apple couldn’t see Ashlynn’s “flash-forward” story, just Ashlynn’s face as she watched it. Her expression was nervous, hopeful, and then… then sad. How could she be sad? Her story ended joyously! It was almost as if Ashlynn had been hoping to see something or someone in her story who didn’t show. Ashlynn took the pen and closed her eyes as she quickly signed.

Some of these arrangements involve an exhibitionist Narcissist and a partner who is “in the closet.” The closet Narcissist is an unassuming type who has her feelers out for someone she can idealize. She needs to put the love object on a pedestal in order to hold herself together, because if her partner is wonderful and she can have him, then all the insecurities inside her will go away. In the Narcissist-closet Narcissist couple, it is actually the latter who is in control, feeding the grandiosity of the love object in order to inflate herself via osmosis. These relationships can be quite successful, as long as the idealizations and illusions can be sustained. But when unpleasant reality intrudes, love implodes.

Leandred is insanely useful—never tell him I said that. he made enough for all of us, and helped imbue them with the spells. We included some of your magic, too. You know Leandred has a ton of it, right?" She frowned at me, but it wasn't nearly as frowny as it used to be when aimed at Constantine. "You're going soft." I smiled. "No, I just agree with Axer Dare—Leandred's motives are transparent at this point. Leandred would burn the world for you." "It's not like that," I said automatically. "No. It's way worse," she said frankly. "You are like the sole family gold nugget and the crystal on the pedestal and all the frankincense in the factory. He'd never touch you. And the world will burn if someone intent on harm does.

Players are people who feed upon the ego you build for them putting them on a pedestal that they are worthy of excusing for anything they do to you. Once you forgive them it is only a matter of time before they do the same thing to you again. Of coarse they fill avoid in your life and they know this as they watch you for days finding out your weaknesses. Once they find out your weaknesses they pray upon them with no regard to how you feel in the process of them working you and another person.You see they need you to feed their egos as much as you need them to fill whatever void they do for you. See what you've got to realize and understand is when someone isn't doing what you want them to do there is only one reason they don't want to, and that is they dont respect you.

And for all of Martin’s actions of peace and love, he was targeted with violence, harassed, arrested, blackmailed, followed by the FBI, and eventually murdered. For all of the pedestals MLK is now put on, far above the reach of ordinary black Americans, Martin was in his life viewed as the most dangerous man in America. Martin was the black man who asked for too much, too loudly. Martin was why white America couldn’t support equality. Because no matter what we ask for, if it threatens the system of White Supremacy, it will always be seen as too much. When we were slaves nursing their babies, we were not nice enough. When we were maids cleaning their homes we were not nice enough. When we were porters shining their shoes we were not nice enough. And when we danced and sang for their entertainment we were not nice enough. For hundreds of years we have been told that the path to freedom from racial oppression lies in our virtue, that our humanity must be earned. We simply don’t deserve equality yet. So when people say that they don’t like my tone, or when they say they can’t support the “militancy” of Black Lives Matter, or when they say that it would be easier if we just didn’t talk about race all the time—I ask one question: Do you believe in justice and equality? Because if you believe in justice and equality you believe in it all of the time, for all people. You believe in it for newborn babies, you believe in it for single mothers, you believe in it for kids in the street, you believe in justice and equality for people you like and people you don’t. You believe in it for people who don’t say please. And if there was anything I could say or do that would convince someone that I or people like me don’t deserve justice or equality, then they never believed in justice and equality in the first place. Yes, I am a Malcolm. And Martin, and Angela, Marcus, Rosa, Biko, Baldwin, Assata, Harriet, and Nina. I’m fighting for liberation. I’m filled with righteous anger and love. I’m shouting, as all before me have in their way. And I’m a human being who was born deserving justice and equality, and that is all you should need to know in order to stand by my side.

When you teach someone your true name, you place everything you are in their hands.” “I know, but I may never have the chance again. This is the only thing I have to give, and I would give it to you.” “Eragon, what you are proposing…It is the most precious thing one person can give another.” “I know.” A shiver ran through Arya, and then she seemed to withdraw within herself. After a time, she said, “No one has ever offered me such a gift before…I’m honored by your trust, Eragon, and I understand how much this means to you, but no, I must decline. It would be wrong for you to do this and wrong for me to accept just because tomorrow we may be killed or enslaved. Danger is no reason to act foolishly, no matter how great our peril.” Eragon inclined his head. Her reasons were good reasons, and he would respect her choice. “Very well, as you wish,” he said. “Thank you, Eragon.” A moment passed. Then he said, “Have you ever told anyone your true name?” “No.” “Not even your mother?” Her mouth twisted. “No.” “Do you know what it is?” “Of course. Why would you think otherwise?” He half shrugged. “I didn’t. I just wasn’t sure.” Silence came between them. Then, “When…how did you learn your true name?” Arya was quiet for so long, he began to think that she would refuse to answer. Then she took a breath and said, “It was a number of years after I left Du Weldenvarden, when I finally had become accustomed to my role among the Varden and the dwarves. Faolin and my other companions were away, and I had a great deal of time to myself. I spent most of it exploring Tronjheim, wandering in the empty reaches of the city-mountain, where others rarely tread. Tronjheim is bigger than most realize, and there are many strange things within it: rooms, people, creatures, forgotten artifacts…As I wandered, I thought, and I came to know myself better than ever I had before. One day I discovered a room somewhere high in Tronjheim--I doubt I could locate it again, even if I tried. A beam of sunlight seemed to pour into the room, though the ceiling was solid, and in the center of the room was a pedestal, and upon the pedestal was growing a single flower. I do not know what kind of flower it was; I have never seen its like before or since. The petals were purple, but the center of the blossom was like a drop of blood. There were thorns upon the stem, and the flower exuded the most wonderful scent and seemed to hum with a music all its own. It was such an amazing and unlikely thing to find, I stayed in the room, staring at the flower for longer than I can remember, and it was then and there that I was finally able to put words to who I was and who I am.” “I would like to see that flower someday.” “Perhaps you will.” Arya glanced toward the Varden’s camp. “I should go. There is much yet to be done.” He nodded. “We’ll see you tomorrow, then.” “Tomorrow.” Arya began to walk away. After a few steps, she paused and looked back. “I’m glad that Saphira chose you as her Rider, Eragon. And I’m proud to have fought alongside you. You have become more than any of us dared hope. Whatever happens tomorrow, know that.” Then she resumed her stride, and soon she disappeared around the curve of the hill, leaving him alone with Saphira and the Eldunarí.

Will Winterborne regain his sight?” “The doctor thinks so, but there’s no way of knowing for certain until he’s tested.” “And the leg?” “The break was clean--it will heal well. However, Winterborne will be staying with us for quite a bit longer than we’d planned. At least a month.” “Good. That will give him more time to become acquainted with Helen.” West’s face went blank. “You’re back to that idea again? Arranging a match between them? What if Winterborne turns out to be lame and blind?” “He’ll still be rich.” Looking sardonic, West said, “Evidently a brush with death hasn’t changed your priorities.” “Why should it? The marriage would benefit everyone.” “How exactly would you stand to benefit?” “I’ll stipulate that Winerborne settle a large dower on Helen, and name me as the trustee of her finances.” “And then you’ll use the money as you see fit?” West asked incredulously. “Sweet Mother of God, how can you risk your life to save drowning children one day, and plot something so ruthless the next day?” Annoyed, Devon gave him a narrow-eyed glance. “There’s no need to carry on as if Helen’s going to be dragged to the altar in chains. She’ll have a choice in the matter.” “The right words can bind someone more effectively than chains. You’ll manipulate her into doing what you want regardless of how she feels.” “Enjoy the view from your moral pedestal,” Devon said. “Unfortunately I have to keep my feet on the ground.

Sweet Mother of God, how can you risk your life to save drowning children one day, and plot something so ruthless the next day?” Annoyed, Devon gave him a narrow-eyed glance. “There’s no need to carry on as if Helen’s going to be dragged to the altar in chains. She’ll have a choice in the matter.” “The right words can bind someone more effectively than chains. You’ll manipulate her into doing what you want regardless of how she feels.” “Enjoy the view from your moral pedestal,” Devon said. “Unfortunately I have to keep my feet on the ground.

There’s no need to carry on as if Helen’s going to be dragged to the altar in chains. She’ll have a choice in the matter.” “The right words can bind someone more effectively than chains. You’ll manipulate her into doing what you want regardless of how she feels.” “Enjoy the view from your moral pedestal,” Devon said. “Unfortunately I have to keep my feet on the ground.” West stood and went to the window, scowling at the view. “There’s a flaw in your plan. Winterborne may decide that Helen isn’t to his taste.” “Oh, he’ll take her,” Devon assured him. “Marrying a daughter of the peerage is the only way for him to climb in society. Consider it, West: Winterborne is one of the richest men in London and half the nobility is in debt to him--and yet the same aristocrats who beg him to extend their credit refuse to welcome him into their drawing rooms. If he marries an earl’s daughter, however, doors that have always been closed to him would instantly open.” Devon paused reflectively. “Helen would do well for him.” “She may not want him.” “Would she rather become a penniless spinster?” “Perhaps,” Wes replied testily. “How should I know?” “My question was rhetorical. Of course Helen will agree to the match. Aristocratic marriages are always arranged for the benefit of the family.” “Yes, but the brides are usually paired with their social equals. What you’re proposing is to lower Helen by selling her to any common lout with deep pockets for your own benefit." “Not any common lout,” Devon said. “One of our friends.” West let out a reluctant laugh and turned back to face him. “Being a friend of ours doesn’t exactly recommend him. I’d rather let him have Pandora or Cassandra--at least they have enough spirit to stand up to him.

Ooof! Amy collided at high speed with someone entering the anteroom from the other direction. Her head was still spinning as a pair of capable hands righted her, and a warm chuckle sounded somewhere above her ear. "What an original way to make your presence felt!" "My lord!" Amy hastily stepped back, this time banging into a bust of Brutus that wobbled ominously on its marble pedestal. Amy grabbed at Brutus before he could take a suicidal leap off his stand. "I didn’t…that is…" "Had you known it was me you would have taken care to run into poor Brutus instead?" Lord Richard supplied with a smile of such conspiratorial goodwill that Amy nearly reeled back into poor Brutus once more. "Something like that," admitted Amy weakly. Clearly, she was still slightly dazed from her two collisions.

Once I found a sticky-note that said someone was placed on a "petal stool". If you ask me, that sounds a lot better than a pedestal. If I had to choose something to be placed on, I would choose the petal stool.

Phantom Ex One of the consequences of devaluing your romantic relationship is that you often wake up long after the relationship has gone stale, having forgotten all those negative things that annoyed you about your partner, wondering what went wrong and reminiscing longingly about your long-lost love. We call it the phantom-ex phenomenon. Often, as happened with Carole who “rediscovered” her feelings for Bob only after she’d broken up with him, once the avoidant person has put time and distance between herself and the partner whom she’s lost interest in, something strange happens: The feelings of love and admiration return! Once at a safe distance, the threat of intimacy is gone and you no longer feel the need to suppress your true feelings. You can then recall all of your ex’s great qualities, convincing yourself that he or she was the best partner you ever had. Of course, you can’t articulate why this person wasn’t right for you, or remember clearly why you ended things in the first place (or perhaps behaved so miserably that he or she had no choice but to leave). In essence, you put your past partner on a pedestal and pay tribute to “the love of your life,” now forever lost. Sometimes you do try to resume the relationship, starting a vicious cycle of getting closer and withdrawing. Other times, even if the other person is available, you don’t make an attempt to get back together but continue all the same to think about him or her incessantly. This fixation with a past partner affects budding new relationships, because it acts as a deactivating strategy, blocking you from getting close to someone else. Even though you’ll probably never get back together with your phantom ex, just the knowledge that they’re out there is enough to make any new partner seem insignificant by comparison. THE POWER OF “THE ONE” Have you ever gone out with someone who you think is amazing, but as you start to get closer, you become overwhelmed with the feeling that s/he isn’t actually so hot after all?

The thirty-day no-contact rule Recovering from a breakup on a more practical basis can be likened to getting over an addiction. You go through periods of major withdrawal where you become overwhelmed by a cocktail of emotions, including guilt, fear, randomly missing him, and suddenly feeling like what he did to you ‘wasn’t that bad’. You start to play the mental showreel of all your good times (even if you only had a few), and suddenly you can’t remember why you left. Feeling this cluster of imbalanced emotions can be very confusing and irritating, but all hope is not lost. Contrary to popular belief, breakups don’t actually have to be hard. We assign so much spiritual and emotional value to these men, that by the time we finally distance ourselves from them, we feel distant from ourselves. And that’s really heartbreaking, because no man is worth losing yourself over. Ever. They say it takes about thirty days to break a habit. Texting your ex, stalking his profile from your second account, deliberately asking your mutual friends certain questions to get updates on his life and his new girl – it all needs to stop. So right now, go cold turkey, block his number on whatever messaging app you use, remove him from all your social media. Maintaining little corridors of access to him means he’s still on a pedestal. It also means your value system when it comes to men is warped, because naturally you’re going to keep comparing new guys to him as long as he holds this much space in your head. You want to evict him from that space so that someone new can blow you away when the time is right! This guy is not the be-all and end-all of your experiences with men, and the outcome of your situation with him really doesn’t have to define your future relationships. This thirty-day period of making yourself the centre of your world has a 100 per cent success rate, because by the time you get to day thirty, if it’s done honestly and correctly, you will have either a) met a new guy or b) found a whole heap of new reasons to love your healing self. But the thirty-day no-contact rule must be adhered to strictly, and if you break the pact with yourself, you must start all the way from the beginning – which might feel like torture.

There is a problem when we put someone on a pedestal instead of God. If that someone falls off the pedestal, we will likely be disappointed and then start judging. God never falls off His pedestal so there is no room for disappointment in Him.

I'm seeing someone." It gets quiet enough to hear our breathing. "You're dating someone?" Aidan asks, sitting back down in my chair. Nadia retakes her spot on my mattress. I glance down at my hands, feeling my cheeks redden. "Not dating, really. It's more like I have feelings I haven't told her about yet." "Do we know her?" I shake my head. "Who is she?" Nadia inquires. I glance up and instantly hate the look of rejection on her face, The lies flow out of me too easily. "Her name's Ivy. She lives over in Harraway with her parents." "Is she our age?" "Yeah. She's only a year older." Try a lot older. I'm answering myself again. "An older woman? Awesome! What does she look like?" I close my eyes as I remember her human form from my dreams. "She's about my height, has long white-blond hair, and green eyes. Ivy's very beautiful." Beautiful? More like drop-dead gorgeous. "She sounds like it." Aidan leans back, putting his hands behind his head. "So where's you meet her?" "At the hospital in Harraway. Ivy does her service hours there." "How come we never saw her?" "You missed each other. She came there at different hours than you guys did." Nadia sticks her hands up and stretches. "What did you two do?" "Talk. Just what we do now. Ivy gave me her phone number and email before I left." "Have you talked to her since?" "Practically every day. She's a wonderful person. You guys would like her." That or you would run away in terror. "So let me get this straight." Aidan scrunches up his face as he thinks everything over. "The reason that you're not gag over Melanie anymore is because of some older chick you met in the hospital?" "Yep." Aidan lets out a long, low whistle. "Damn. If she's good enough to kick Melanie off the love pedestal, she has to be worth going after." I nod. "Yeah. Ivy is. I...I think I like her." If this were a cartoon, Nadia would have a rain cloud over her head—she looks that bashed from my news.

The moment you place someone on a pedestal they will look down upon you.

Who someone is and what they do is all that matters. This is especially true because who we are changes as we grow and as we change our minds. Furthermore, we are never really of one mind about anything. Belief is never the point—actions are. We can be of two minds about biology or God but treat everyone around us with kindness. If we wait for correct ideas to save us—theological or otherwise—we’ll never be saved, even from ourselves. Why? Because we can never have a fully correct idea. Why? Because however we label ourselves, we are still only half-evolved primates in two or more minds and multiple moods. All we have is our stories. Today’s great art is tomorrow’s joke. Today’s joke is tomorrow’s great art. Today’s atheist is tomorrow’s ardent convert. Today’s preacher is tomorrow’s atheist author. I can’t objectively describe reality because I’m trapped in the moving target we call time. That’s what the word “evolution” means. The very fabric of the universe is unknowable and stranger than we can imagine and has a message for us: climb down off that high atheist, religious or agnostic pedestal!

[We] eventually joked about the pedestal he put me on during our first years together, and I know my falling off it drew us closer. Pedestals separate. They create imbalances. ... But the pedestal Scott has placed me on feels so good under my feet. I like the smooth, study foundation of it, the intoxicating knowledge that I am someone's ideal, someone's vision of perfection.

Anna had never forgotten the first social rule in school. If you’re popular stay that way as long as possible. No matter what. If given an opportunity to knock someone off their pedestal, do it, and make it hurt.

Someone wants your body. / What's the deal? / Beg, borrow, buy or steal? / Gutter or pedestal? / That's how it is with bodies / that someone wants. / What's it worth to you? / A rose, a diamond, / a cool million, a joke, a drink? /The fiction that this one likes you?

It could become a similar situation. Liking someone and putting them on a pedestal can lead to self-castigation. Even if the physical distance between two people lessens, the psychological distance can increase. That can lead to feelings of inferiority. You think, This person will try to distance herself from me, and you provoke them into confirming whether this is true – either by asking the person, or indirectly.

Love is when someone puts you on a pedestal and yet when you fall, they’re there to catch you anyway.

But here’s the thing: Martin Luther King was not the “MLK” of his time, not the “MLK” of legend. Martin Luther King was public enemy number one. Seen as an even greater threat by our government, and a large portion of society, than Malcolm X was. Because what Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X fought for was the same: freedom from oppression. At times they used different words and different tactics, but it was their goal that was the threat. Their goal of freedom from racial oppression was and is a direct threat to the system of White Supremacy. And for all of Martin’s actions of peace and love, he was targeted with violence, harassed, arrested, blackmailed, followed by the FBI, and eventually murdered. For all of the pedestals MLK is now put on, far above the reach of ordinary black Americans, Martin was in his life viewed as the most dangerous man in America. Martin was the black man who asked for too much, too loudly. Martin was why white America couldn’t support equality. Because no matter what we ask for, if it threatens the system of White Supremacy, it will always be seen as too much. When we were slaves nursing their babies, we were not nice enough. When we were maids cleaning their homes we were not nice enough. When we were porters shining their shoes we were not nice enough. And when we danced and sang for their entertainment we were not nice enough. For hundreds of years we have been told that the path to freedom from racial oppression lies in our virtue, that our humanity must be earned. We simply don’t deserve equality yet. So when people say that they don’t like my tone, or when they say they can’t support the “militancy” of Black Lives Matter, or when they say that it would be easier if we just didn’t talk about race all the time—I ask one question: Do you believe in justice and equality? Because if you believe in justice and equality you believe in it all of the time, for all people. You believe in it for newborn babies, you believe in it for single mothers, you believe in it for kids in the street, you believe in justice and equality for people you like and people you don’t. You believe in it for people who don’t say please. And if there was anything I could say or do that would convince someone that I or people like me don’t deserve justice or equality, then they never believed in justice and equality in the first place. Yes, I am a Malcolm. And Martin, and Angela, Marcus, Rosa, Biko, Baldwin, Assata, Harriet, and Nina. I’m fighting for liberation. I’m filled with righteous anger and love. I’m shouting, as all before me have in their way. And I’m a human being who was born deserving justice and equality, and that is all you should need to know in order to stand by my side.

do it? Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are, too? We all know the answer to these very simple questions. When you look into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can’t walk away from this truth. And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing, and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics, this is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naïve quest to solve all our problems at once. This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile, and most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong. Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division, and yes, with violence. To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past, it is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future. History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong. And in the second decade of the twenty-first century, asking African Americans—or anyone else—to drive by property that they own occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd. Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. Here is the essential truth: We are better together than we are apart. Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world? We radiate

For so long, I kept her on a pedestal," he says, "holding her in the highest regard. I think it was because of how high I raised her, how high we all raised her, that I couldn't see her for what she is. Turns out my admiration only serves the show, the act, the game she's playing with all of us. With the entire Land of Five. Now that I see past it, all of it, it's clear. She's poison masquerading as medicine.

When you die, your privacy dies with you. Eventually, someone will rifle through your purse, your bathroom cabinet, your pockets. Someone will discover your journal and your secret feelings, all of your angriest and silliest and most lustful thoughts on paper. Someone will notice the stains in the underarms of your t-shirts, the hole in your worn-out underwear, the stash of candy in your bottom dresser drawer, the birthday gift that you shoved to the very back of your closet in the box marked "Yard Sale." Eventually, all your secrets are told, all of you discovered and exposed. Perhaps this is the scariest part about dying. The living go on to know you better than you might have wanted. When you die, their discoveries will lift you on a pedestal or diminish your legacy.

We are flawed people whose jobs make us seem grander than we are. I know I can be trash and have garbage ways. I am not infallible or smarter than someone just because I have the platform. Nah. I got kicked off my pedestal and I hope people didn’t put me back on it, because I don’t deserve it. Leave me down here, because I can’t live up to the standards folks often ascribe to personalities they follow. I will disappoint you. I will let you down. I will fuck up. But I will hopefully never stop learning how to show up in the best way I know how. I will not stop growing. I will not stop holding myself accountable to who I say I am.