can you imagine being so overwhelmed so
frustrated so inconvenienced by love
that you completely give up on it
and I’m not just talking about the
romantic emotional type of love I’m
thinking about that those actions that
demonstrate a genuine care and concern
for all of humanity that type of love
can you imagine I can and unfortunately
it’s quite uncharacteristic of me to not
be the loving friend survey any of my
friends and they all say the same thing
Jessica exudes love but being the loving
friends has its own set of drawbacks
it means you emphasize with other
people’s problems and struggles and
consider them in your own actions
it means you constantly think about your
impact on the world it’s exhausting so
as a young 20 year olds I gave up on
love I was sick of being the loving
friend and felt like heartbreak was too
common I felt like I was really nervous
right now I’m sorry oh and this is being
filmed okay all right so let’s be honest
with who we are and be transparent that
people are not perfect that was a great
speech so I’m gonna love myself right
now and talk about the transformative
power of love so
uh in my early 20s I gave up on love
right I was sick of being the loving
friend and it seemed like heartbreak was
my best friend I was my genuine loving
nature was waning I was less tolerant to
my friends and family less caring at
work and held myself to overall lower
standards as you can imagine this was a
pretty difficult time for me in my life
I was diminishing the power of love and
struggling to see its relevance at all
it was during this time of struggle that
I was most unhappy and I decided that I
needed to reclaim love in my life I
sought it out I fixated on it I grappled
with what it meant to love and I noticed
that my entire life had been a testament
to it from a mother’s love that
sacrificed to sustain me to the desire
for true romantic love that inspired me
to a deep love of community which
grounded me to the quest for self-love
which motivated me love was present in
every corner of my life if I only
intentionally sought it out
I therefore proclaimed that it was my
responsibility to exude as much love
into the world as humanly possible and I
don’t just mean holding love in my
relationships and friendships I’m
talking about my actions each day how
many of you have forgiven someone who’s
not worthy of forgiveness have
considered an opinion that you
completely disagree with that that’s
love but I get it right
love is not everyone’s Jam in fact when
I mentioned it half of y’all rolled your
eyes at me we’ve got a serious issue
with love and why wouldn’t we we live
during a time when common leadership
rhetoric is
when disparity is the norm and when
romantic love is confined to a micro
screen love as a philosophy an approach
is too difficult to prioritize right now
but what if love was transformative
what if love was the answer to all of
our social problems
I want asked a renowned researcher whose
work centers on dismantling systemic
oppression where love and critique
intersect they almost laughed me off
stating that their work was grounded in
love of course but that the discourse
the deliverables of their work were not
love it seemed that love was too
sentimental a construct to have wait but
it’s love doesn’t have magnitude how
then in 1955 when mammy till insisted to
keep the casket of Amon open did her
love for her son galvanized the emerging
civil rights movement love has magnitude
mammy harnessed the power of love was in
tension she wanted the world to share in
her pain and created change
love has intention okay if you’re
struggling to conceptualize the power of
love or the purpose of love as anything
beyond romantic love I want you to take
Reverend dr. Martin Luther King’s
definition of love love as justice love
that corrects anything that stands in
the way of love that love heals love
corrects that love restores dr. King
asserts that love is restorative and
ironically I know this to be true from
my own love story you see like any queer
I fell in love quickly I love my wife
early on in my relationship and I
willingly inherited her anxieties about
her future I was celebrating proudly her
accomplishments I decided that our
destinies would become inextricably
connected but my wife at this time in
our relationship it was too early for
her to choose love she had been
heartbroken and was unwilling to fall in
love again she it was only through time
in my genuine displays of love and
affection that she decided she would be
open to the potential of our love
eventually she chose love and two she
too became restored now I talk about our
love as a choice not to discredit the
natural chemical reaction that is a
component of it but because too often we
disempower ourselves and our power of
choice in love we talk about it as a
passive act something that just happens
to us we just fall into it but in order
to recognize the power of love we need
to recognize the power of our choice to
love love is a choice how many of you
have chosen to love how many of you have
exercised your power and chosen not to
to recognize the power of love is to
love is work right it’s not something
that we can passively engage in it
requires effort it requires action love
is the intention to extend oneself to an
hence the well-being of another we
cannot passively accept love it requires
work love is action takes Audrina truth
a black woman born into slavery whose
freedom intellect and physical body were
constantly subjected to attack she
however her activism spans beyond the
various movement she was involved in it
spans beyond abolition beyond women’s
suffrage beyond evangelism into
contemporary issues of criminal justice
reform
Sojourner was the truth y’all how’d she
do it it was love a deep love of self
which she proudly proclaims in her
famous speech ain’t I a woman and a deep
love of others which is inherent in her
vastly public and active life Serge Erna
rained the power of love with action and
I realized that concepts of power and
love seem contradictory as power is so
often associated with dominance and
subordination but imagine them together
now that that could change the world so
but I realized we’re not there yet right
we’re not ready to hold loves in the
forefront of our actions
it was bell hooks who says that the
transformative power of love is not
fully embraced in society because we
often wrongly believe that torment and
anguish are our natural condition
well I implore you to reclaim love
because love is transformative power in
action and while I’m still grappling
with my own definition of love and how
it presents itself in my life here’s
what I know love is in tension followed
by action
driven by choice it’s not just some
emotional mystique it is justice and if
we’re going to create a change in the
world it needs to start with love leave
today grappling with your own definition
of love and choosing to extend as much
love into the world as humanly possible
because love can’t wait another day
we’ve got to reclaim our power through
it thank you [Applause]
frustrated so inconvenienced by love
that you completely give up on it
and I’m not just talking about the
romantic emotional type of love I’m
thinking about that those actions that
demonstrate a genuine care and concern
for all of humanity that type of love
can you imagine I can and unfortunately
it’s quite uncharacteristic of me to not
be the loving friend survey any of my
friends and they all say the same thing
Jessica exudes love but being the loving
friends has its own set of drawbacks
it means you emphasize with other
people’s problems and struggles and
consider them in your own actions
it means you constantly think about your
impact on the world it’s exhausting so
as a young 20 year olds I gave up on
love I was sick of being the loving
friend and felt like heartbreak was too
common I felt like I was really nervous
right now I’m sorry oh and this is being
filmed okay all right so let’s be honest
with who we are and be transparent that
people are not perfect that was a great
speech so I’m gonna love myself right
now and talk about the transformative
power of love so
uh in my early 20s I gave up on love
right I was sick of being the loving
friend and it seemed like heartbreak was
my best friend I was my genuine loving
nature was waning I was less tolerant to
my friends and family less caring at
work and held myself to overall lower
standards as you can imagine this was a
pretty difficult time for me in my life
I was diminishing the power of love and
struggling to see its relevance at all
it was during this time of struggle that
I was most unhappy and I decided that I
needed to reclaim love in my life I
sought it out I fixated on it I grappled
with what it meant to love and I noticed
that my entire life had been a testament
to it from a mother’s love that
sacrificed to sustain me to the desire
for true romantic love that inspired me
to a deep love of community which
grounded me to the quest for self-love
which motivated me love was present in
every corner of my life if I only
intentionally sought it out
I therefore proclaimed that it was my
responsibility to exude as much love
into the world as humanly possible and I
don’t just mean holding love in my
relationships and friendships I’m
talking about my actions each day how
many of you have forgiven someone who’s
not worthy of forgiveness have
considered an opinion that you
completely disagree with that that’s
love but I get it right
love is not everyone’s Jam in fact when
I mentioned it half of y’all rolled your
eyes at me we’ve got a serious issue
with love and why wouldn’t we we live
during a time when common leadership
rhetoric is
when disparity is the norm and when
romantic love is confined to a micro
screen love as a philosophy an approach
is too difficult to prioritize right now
but what if love was transformative
what if love was the answer to all of
our social problems
I want asked a renowned researcher whose
work centers on dismantling systemic
oppression where love and critique
intersect they almost laughed me off
stating that their work was grounded in
love of course but that the discourse
the deliverables of their work were not
love it seemed that love was too
sentimental a construct to have wait but
it’s love doesn’t have magnitude how
then in 1955 when mammy till insisted to
keep the casket of Amon open did her
love for her son galvanized the emerging
civil rights movement love has magnitude
mammy harnessed the power of love was in
tension she wanted the world to share in
her pain and created change
love has intention okay if you’re
struggling to conceptualize the power of
love or the purpose of love as anything
beyond romantic love I want you to take
Reverend dr. Martin Luther King’s
definition of love love as justice love
that corrects anything that stands in
the way of love that love heals love
corrects that love restores dr. King
asserts that love is restorative and
ironically I know this to be true from
my own love story you see like any queer
I fell in love quickly I love my wife
early on in my relationship and I
willingly inherited her anxieties about
her future I was celebrating proudly her
accomplishments I decided that our
destinies would become inextricably
connected but my wife at this time in
our relationship it was too early for
her to choose love she had been
heartbroken and was unwilling to fall in
love again she it was only through time
in my genuine displays of love and
affection that she decided she would be
open to the potential of our love
eventually she chose love and two she
too became restored now I talk about our
love as a choice not to discredit the
natural chemical reaction that is a
component of it but because too often we
disempower ourselves and our power of
choice in love we talk about it as a
passive act something that just happens
to us we just fall into it but in order
to recognize the power of love we need
to recognize the power of our choice to
love love is a choice how many of you
have chosen to love how many of you have
exercised your power and chosen not to
to recognize the power of love is to
love is work right it’s not something
that we can passively engage in it
requires effort it requires action love
is the intention to extend oneself to an
hence the well-being of another we
cannot passively accept love it requires
work love is action takes Audrina truth
a black woman born into slavery whose
freedom intellect and physical body were
constantly subjected to attack she
however her activism spans beyond the
various movement she was involved in it
spans beyond abolition beyond women’s
suffrage beyond evangelism into
contemporary issues of criminal justice
reform
Sojourner was the truth y’all how’d she
do it it was love a deep love of self
which she proudly proclaims in her
famous speech ain’t I a woman and a deep
love of others which is inherent in her
vastly public and active life Serge Erna
rained the power of love with action and
I realized that concepts of power and
love seem contradictory as power is so
often associated with dominance and
subordination but imagine them together
now that that could change the world so
but I realized we’re not there yet right
we’re not ready to hold loves in the
forefront of our actions
it was bell hooks who says that the
transformative power of love is not
fully embraced in society because we
often wrongly believe that torment and
anguish are our natural condition
well I implore you to reclaim love
because love is transformative power in
action and while I’m still grappling
with my own definition of love and how
it presents itself in my life here’s
what I know love is in tension followed
by action
driven by choice it’s not just some
emotional mystique it is justice and if
we’re going to create a change in the
world it needs to start with love leave
today grappling with your own definition
of love and choosing to extend as much
love into the world as humanly possible
because love can’t wait another day
we’ve got to reclaim our power through
it thank you [Applause]
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