Quote by Audre Lorde

If only this was a message more of us understood and took to heart

I wish that more parents understood and could celebrate the differences between themselves and their kids. Too often kids are shamed, belittled, or punished because their way of being in the world, their way of expressing themselves is different from their parent’s way of being and therefore not valued or validated.

Too often people who fall outside our cultural norms for gender and sexual orientation are misunderstood, dehumanized or considered abnormal.

But nature loves diversity, it is only the smallness of the human mind or heart that cannot see the beauty in that diversity.

Whether we are talking on the small scale between one person and another, or on a global scale between one continent and another, we must begin to work to recognize that our differences are reasons for celebration and learning and not a reason to try to destroy one another.

The great Audre Lorde was an American and a self-described “Black, lesbian, mother warrior, poet.”