Best Of My motto in life has always been: If somebody says “No,” you’re talking to the wrong person. — “Episode 10: Kris Jenner” Never Before with Janet Mock When you’re a fairly friendless child, […] you develop really intense relationships with media. — “Episode 5: Lena Dunham.” Never Before with Janet Mock “I had already…
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Best Of
My motto in life has always been: If somebody says “No,” you’re talking to the wrong person.
— “Episode 10: Kris Jenner” Never Before with Janet Mock
When you’re a fairly friendless child, […] you develop really intense relationships with media.
— “Episode 5: Lena Dunham.” Never Before with Janet Mock
“I had already been versed in code-switching [and] people would say to me, literally, ‘Oh, you’re not like the rest of them.’ […] ‘You’re smart, you know how to say words with ings, you know how to put Ts at the ends of your consonants, you can say ‘would.’ You know, those things set you apart.’ And what they really did was isolate me further from my community. They were really teaching me ‘Hey, these things make you more closer to whiteness’ and in truth, they don’t at all. They make me just speaking so I can be understood to […] supremacy. And then what will happen is, you’ll find yourself up in those white spaces and look around and realize, ‘Ah, I have not been extended a seat at the table, or at least I have not [been] extended the same meat at the table. I’m just near. At no point am I being allowed access. I’m just here to witness’ and once you realize that you go ‘Oh, it’s a trick! It’s a further trick to make you think or feel a way the very place that gave you life.’
— “Episode 6: Tarell Alvin McCraney.” Never Before with Janet Mock
I’ve had the curse of self-awareness since [I was] very young. It was a birth defect.
— “Episode 7: Gabourey Sidibe.” Never Before with Janet Mock
I’ve always had a push and pull between who they want me to be, who they think I am and who I actually am. And who I prefer to be.
— “Episode 7: Gabourey Sidibe.” Never Before with Janet Mock
All they know of me is what they saw. […] As a woman, and as a Black person, you know what they see of us and what we actually are is very different. They’ll see an example, they’ll see a cartoon of us and assume that’s all of us.
— “Episode 7: Gabourey Sidibe.” Never Before with Janet Mock
There is so much time wasted in being quiet. It’s detrimental, it is dangerous, it is dangerous to lie and it is dangerous to be silent.
— “Episode 7: Gabourey Sidibe.” Never Before with Janet Mock
The Rest
A strong woman doesn’t get there just because she woke up one day and she was strong. You know, a strong woman is almost earned. […] You go through a series of events in your life that make you stronger each time and if you can keep getting up and dusting yourself off, it’s very rewarding.
— “Episode 10: Kris Jenner” Never Before with Janet Mock
We don’t have to [reinvent the wheel] for people have already done this work, all we have to do is build upon the work.
— “Episode 3: Maxine Waters.” Never Before with Janet Mock
I’m not frustrated, but I am determined.
— “Episode 3: Maxine Waters.” Never Before with Janet Mock
Memes can mobilize.
— “Episode 3: Maxine Waters.” Never Before with Janet Mock
“[Oprah is saying this and Gabourey recounting] Listen. Whatever it is that you have, they want some of it. When I was making $100 they needed about $50, when I was making $1000 they needed $500, when I was making $1,000,000 they needed 500… [and she was like] You can handicap them but you have to be the one to decide what you will give and if they want more than that, you’ve decided. The thing is, they will get it. They will figure it out.”
— “Episode 7: Gabourey Sidibe.” Never Before with Janet Mock
There is power in sharing hurt and there is power in sharing humanity.
— “Episode 7: Gabourey Sidibe.” Never Before with Janet Mock
I can say, ‘This is who I am,’ but it’s human nature [for you to] still see me through the filter of you.
— “Episode 7: Gabourey Sidibe.” Never Before with Janet Mock
None of them have ever offered me, me until it was me.
— “Episode 7: Gabourey Sidibe.” Never Before with Janet Mock
I lean into awkwardness. I’m not going to pretend that everything is fine. I’m not going to hide it from you, because we all see it, I’m not going to lie to you. I can’t do it.
— “Episode 7: Gabourey Sidibe.” Never Before with Janet Mock
Mental and emotional intelligence and self-awareness is a gift and a curse.
— “Episode 7: Gabourey Sidibe.” Never Before with Janet Mock
My friendships […] I didn’t have any ability to look at them critically. I felt socially I was a creature trapped in amber who would accept anybody that was interested in me, I allowed a lot of energetic leeches into my life because I was so […] beaten down [by criticism] that anybody that would say to me, ‘I like you. You’re a good person’ I let those people in.
— “Episode 5: Lena Dunham.” Never Before with Janet Mock
“Don’t focus on the other people looking at you crazy, focus on the people looking at you with love.”
— “Episiode 1: Tina Knowles-Lawson.” Never Before with Janet Mock
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