“We can't continue to sit on our hands and sit idly by as people are be...” — Opal Tometi Quote

We can't continue to sit on our hands and sit idly by as people are being brutalized, disenfranchised, and left out of the system.

My mom, my aunts, and all the Nigerian women in my life have been so fierce and strong. I have only grown up around powerful women, so I have a strong sense of self and our power.

As an immigrant justice advocate, I, of course, want legal status for everyone trying to make it in this country.

Being in the immigrant rights space, I've heard a lot of transactional talk with questions like, 'When will black people show up for immigrants?'

From my youngest brother to immigrant women to black queer folks, those are the people who keep me going. When I think about their various acts of courage, it reminds me that I am not alone and that we can do even more, and we deserve more, so we have to keep going.

If you help elect more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.

I became so disenfranchised, I dropped out of school and I moved to New York.

We know that there are people in our nation, black people, who are systematically being disenfranchised in a number of spheres in our lives.

The thing with mutants is, they've always stood in for the disenfranchised and downtrodden. And no matter how hard they fight, how hard they work to live among humans, the humans always push back with new laws and new ways of hurting mutants.