Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams says picking battles in areas of keen personal interest may be too much to ask. The political activist, author, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee was the keynote speaker at Centre College’s Black History Month program Wednesday night.
Stacey Abrams formal presentation focused on facets of her run for Georgia’s highest office and what she learned from the experience. Then the virtual event became a conversation with her sister, Andrea Abrams, Centre’s Associate Vice President for Diversity Affairs. When asked about self-care, Abrams said that includes prioritizing one’s efforts. “It’s not that you need to just pick your battle, you need to pick the part of the battle you’re going to fight in, because sometimes we get so overwhelmed trying to fight the whole war that we forget that we’ve got allies, we’ve got people that are doing it with us. And we don’t have to do it all ourselves,” said Abrams.
Abrams said a key part of self-care is patience, not stopping in seeking change, but pacing oneself.
The conversation turned to “code switching.” Abrams noted it’s not designed as imitation or as inauthentic, it’s always designed for communication. She cited a kinship care talk with an elderly couple when she spoke about her upbringing in Mississippi. “That patter, that patois might start to develop when I talk about Mississippi, that gave them comfort that this person who is a state legislator, who is the democratic leader, still understood where she came from and that meant that I could understand where they were coming from and it made it easier for us to communicate and for me to be of service,” explained Abrams.
Abrams told Centre students who she said might worry where they fit in to ask the questions what is at stake?, what is possible?, and what is your job? Abrams said that can give voice to issues they care about.
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