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butnotmine: I often mention on this blog that I’m going to start a series - People You Should Know - about badasses I happen to know and love, who I think you should know about as well. Rather than officially starting this series, I often just post something about someone I love and exclaim:  look at this brilliant badass! So, here is an example of that, or a piece of the series, if you will! Lateefah Simon has been mentioned on this blog before, but Oprah just included her on her first ever “Power List” of visionaries, so, you know, lets all just pause again to take in the awesomeness of this woman.  I’ve known Lateefah since I was a homeless teenager, and we’d stalk the floors of San Francisco’s City Hall, being loud about what we thought mattered.  Since then she was declared an official (MacArthur) “genius” (the youngest women to ever be awarded the honor!) and has gone about her way changing the world and being fierce.  She’s one of those rare people who I can have a drink with and we can easily go from plotting world take overs, to appreciating the increased hotness over time of the woman I’m being all in love with at any given point. Quality. Not only do I adore this woman, but you all should pay attention, because she is only going to grow in power and fierceness over the years. Here’s what Oprah has to say about her: Who Put You in Charge? Lateefah Simon Community leader, change agent At 15 she was a client at the Center for Young Women’s Development, which helps troubled and poor young women transform their lives. By 19 she was the center’s executive director. Seven years later she received a MacArthur “genius” grant. Today Simon, 32, is executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco, a senior at Mills College, and the mother of a 13-year-old daughter. We asked her how she claimed her power: I grew up in the Fillmore, a community in San Francisco that was hit hard by the crack-cocaine epidemic. My neighborhood was at the edge of the Castro, where men were dying of AIDS, and I knew the black community was suffering, too. With all that tragedy around, I began to politicize what I saw—I felt entitled to be political. Once you feel that, everything is in your grasp: You think, “I can learn to speak in front of people, write grants, develop policy. It may take me longer, but I can do it.” When I was 18 and eight months pregnant, I would go and speak about HIV, and I knew people were thinking, “Who are you to talk about safe sex?” But I didn’t apologize. I want to change the lives of women in this country—and that should be done by someone who had a baby at 19, who white-knuckled her way through college, who taught herself to run an organization. When people say, “How do you do it?” I say I’m not doing half the work my grandmother did. If you want to inflict your change, you have to recognize who you’re accountable to. The women before me accepted nothing but the best, and I owe it to them to lead. (Click here for the official Oprah link and the other 19 women highlighted.)

butnotmine:

I often mention on this blog that I’m going to start a series - People You Should Know - about badasses I happen to know and love, who I think you should know about as well.

Rather than officially starting this series, I often just post something about someone I love and exclaim:  look at this brilliant badass!

So, here is an example of that, or a piece of the series, if you will!

Lateefah Simon has been mentioned on this blog before, but Oprah just included her on her first ever “Power List” of visionaries, so, you know, lets all just pause again to take in the awesomeness of this woman.  I’ve known Lateefah since I was a homeless teenager, and we’d stalk the floors of San Francisco’s City Hall, being loud about what we thought mattered.  Since then she was declared an official (MacArthur) “genius” (the youngest women to ever be awarded the honor!) and has gone about her way changing the world and being fierce.  She’s one of those rare people who I can have a drink with and we can easily go from plotting world take overs, to appreciating the increased hotness over time of the woman I’m being all in love with at any given point. Quality.

Not only do I adore this woman, but you all should pay attention, because she is only going to grow in power and fierceness over the years.

Here’s what Oprah has to say about her:

Who Put You in Charge? Lateefah Simon

Community leader, change agent

At 15 she was a client at the Center for Young Women’s Development, which helps troubled and poor young women transform their lives. By 19 she was the center’s executive director. Seven years later she received a MacArthur “genius” grant. Today Simon, 32, is executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco, a senior at Mills College, and the mother of a 13-year-old daughter. We asked her how she claimed her power:

I grew up in the Fillmore, a community in San Francisco that was hit hard by the crack-cocaine epidemic. My neighborhood was at the edge of the Castro, where men were dying of AIDS, and I knew the black community was suffering, too. With all that tragedy around, I began to politicize what I saw—I felt entitled to be political. Once you feel that, everything is in your grasp: You think, “I can learn to speak in front of people, write grants, develop policy. It may take me longer, but I can do it.” When I was 18 and eight months pregnant, I would go and speak about HIV, and I knew people were thinking, “Who are you to talk about safe sex?” But I didn’t apologize. I want to change the lives of women in this country—and that should be done by someone who had a baby at 19, who white-knuckled her way through college, who taught herself to run an organization. When people say, “How do you do it?” I say I’m not doing half the work my grandmother did. If you want to inflict your change, you have to recognize who you’re accountable to. The women before me accepted nothing but the best, and I owe it to them to lead.

(Click here for the official Oprah link and the other 19 women highlighted.)

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