June 1, 2014 - Written by: Beth Teverson

Dare to Make a Difference: Remembering Maya Angelou

Thursday morning, America lost one of its treasures. The voice of Maya Angelou has been the song of hope for so many women and men throughout a socially and economically turbulent century that saw changes no one thought possible.

Now, at the end of her life, we all remember how one woman survived rape, teenage pregnancy, countless occupations, and constant racial and gender discrimination to become a figurehead for both civil rights and American literature.

Maya Angelou had so many talents and achieved so much – what can we learn from such an inspiring figure?

I mean, it’s alright to retweet her words, to post her inspirational quotes on your Facebook status for fellow Facebookers to relate to for a minute. But how can we bring such inspirational words into our everyday lives?

I recently attended a debate over banning The Sun’s Page 3 model. Lucy Holmes, the key advocate for the ban, argued that it was discriminatory, it made casual sexism okay, it was wrong and so it should go; young girls that grow into young women are being distracted by the media. You don’t have to look much further than your local newsagent to see that distraction.

Here are these magazines-created ‘for women’:

‘The latest summer beauty buys’.

‘How to get your best bikini body in six weeks’

‘5 anti-age foods you didn’t know existed…’

And there, on the front, is a picture of some overly-groomed celebrity or other, looking hot, looking beautiful, looking… successful?

And I will hold my hands up and say that I’ve indulged in it: reading about exercise plans, diets, beauty products, self improvement, how to get boys boys boys to like you (still yet to work in my case).

But how many hours have I spent thinking about these things? How many minutes have I wasted?

And so I ask you…

How many times has feeling insecure and self-conscious about your appearance prevented you from achieving?

Probably more times than you think.

How we look and how we display ourselves has never been so important.

It is now part of most people’s daily routine to spend a whole day intermittently looking at photos on Instagram, on Facebook and on Twitter. I’m not demonising social media; social media has given everyone equal access to a public voice.

But how are we using this voice?

Some may argue that we don’t have battles to face like Maya did. And to some extent we don’t. But should we then spend so much of our time, our precious given time, talking about eyebrows, when we could be discussing ideas? Ideas for social improvement; ideas for change.

Sometimes I get really sick about how overtly passive the British can be. We spend our days moaning about the weather, about our appearances, about the economy, about how we aren’t treated fairly or listened to by our politicians. And yet in the Euro-election last week only one third of those registered to vote actually did.

I am reminded of a conversation with a friend, let’s call him Harry, after the Page 3 debate. Harry told me of his anger in his youth:

‘I went to so many protests and one day I turned to a guy and asked why he was protesting. The man said he didn’t know – he just liked to come along to these things’.

(Image via)

And, believe me, I have seen how ineffectual protesting can be. I stood there in minus temperatures for 10 hours outside Westminster, kettled in by police, with thousands upon thousands of other students and our voices were ignored. The politicians couldn’t hear our cries for accessible and affordable education and if they did, they didn’t care.

It taught me that simply shouting doesn’t work and Maya Angelou, it would seem, knew this too. As Gary Young states in The Guardian she was:

‘A woman determined to give voice to both frustration and a militancy without being so consumed by either that she could not connect with those who did not instinctively relate to it. A woman who, in her own words, was determined to go through life with “passion, compassion, humour and some style”‘.

Perhaps, then, we should be spending our time not pondering over a daily ‘well-being’ email newsletter but, instead, looking at our world and ideas to change it.

‘What would really make a difference to the Page 3 debate is not to protest about banning it, but to protest about bringing more diversity to it. Include men and women, young and old. A picture of an old guy with his dong out -now that would scare The Sun into taking it off’. Harry concluded.

And he was right.

Maya Angelou was a raconteur. She used her wit and passion to make such an imprint on this world. And we should all take time to dare to make a difference: