Gabby Rivera

How am I supposed to be this honest? I know you__e not a Magic 8 Ball. You__e just some lady that wrote a book. I fall asleep with that book in my arms because words protect hearts and I__e got this ache in my chest that won__ go away. I read Raging Flower and now I dream of raised fists and solidarity marches led by matriarchs fueled by café con leche where I can march alongside cigar-smoking doñas and Black Power dykes and all the world__ weirdos and no one is left out. And no one is living a lie.

It's about women of color owning their own space and their voices being treated with dignity and respect. It's about women of color not having to shout over voices to be heard. We are the dominant force almost all the time. White women are the stars of all the movies. White women are the lead speakers in feminist debates, and it's little white girls that send the nation into a frenzy when they've been kidnapped. ...check your privilege. We're the ones that need to give women of color space for their voices.

Every day that we exist on this planet the forces of white men in power are aimed at policing women's bodies and subjugating our identities to make us feel lesser than, to control us through physical and economic annihilation.

Read everything you can push into your skull. Read your motherâ__s diary. Read Assata. Read everything Gloria Steinem and bell hooks write. Read all of the poems your friends leave in your locker. Read books about your body written by people who have bodies like yours. Read everything that supports your growth as a vibrant, rebel girl human. Read because youâ__re tired of secrets.

Libraries are safe but also exciting. Libraries are where nerds like me go to refuel. They are safe-havens where the polluted noise of the outside world, with all the bullies and bro-dudes and anti-feminist rhetoric, is shut out. Libraries have zero tolerance for bullshit. Their walls protect us and keep us safe from all the bastards that have never read a book for fun.

I understood 'microaggressions' to mean 'little bullshit acts of racism.