Rihanna kreeg gistermiddag de Harvard University's Humanitarian of the Year award uitgereikt, en verscheen daarvoor in Cambridge, dressed to make a statement, in een off-the-shoulder jurk en lieslaarzen:
Maar het was niet alleen haar outfit - haar speech was ook raak. Het begon allemaal met deze hair flip, toen RiRi het aanwezige publiek zei 'so I made it to Harvard', op de meest Elle Woods-manier mogelijk:
Daarna verduidelijkte ze dat we allemaal humanitarians kunnen - en zouden moeten - zijn.
'All you need to do is help one person, expecting nothing in return,' aldus de zangeres. 'To me, that is a humanitarian. People make it seem way too hard, man.'
Ze vervolgde: 'The truth is, and what I want the little girl watching those [aid] commercials to know, is you don't have to be rich to be a humanitarian. You don't have to be rich to help somebody. You don't gotta be famous. You don't even have to be college-educated. I mean, I wish I was, I'm not saying you know…'
Hear, hear, RiRi!
Rihanna wordt door de Harvard foundation onder meer geroemd om haar activisme, haar Believe Foundation, haar werk voor Unicef, haar bezoeken aan Malawi, en haar inzet in de strijd tegen HIV/AIDS:
Grote namen als Aung San Suu Kyi, Malala Yousfzai, Dolores Huerta, James Earl Jones, Desmond Tutu en Martin Luther King gingen Rihanna al voor in het ontvangen van deze award. Maar Rihanna is de eerste donkere vrouwelijke artiest naar wie de eer is gegaan.
Onderaan deze pagina delen we de volledige speech van Rihanna op Harvard. En in de bijgevoegde video heb je er vanaf 1:16:00 beeld bij.
Maar eerst nog even dit:
Dior heeft bekendgemaakt dat een percentage van de opbrengst van het meest besproken eerste ontwerp van Maria Grazia Chiuri voor Dior, het 'We should all be feminists'-shirt uit de spring/summer 2017-collectie (geïnspireerd op Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's essay en TEDx talk), naar de Clara Lionel Foundation zal gaan. Precies, Rihanna's zelf opgerichte goede doel.
Rihanna startte CLF in 2012 ter ere van haar grootouders Clara en Lionel, en het strijdt voor wereldwijd onderwijs, gezondheid en de toegang tot emergency response programs.
Het shirt - schrik niet - kost een kleine 675 euro en is verkrijgbaar in Dior-boetieks en online. Een limited edition zwarte versie van het T-shirt zal vanaf 14 maart tot 28 maart verkrijgbaar zijn via Saks.com.
'Seeing artists such as Rihanna wearing the We Should All Be Feminists T-shirt showed me how important it is for women to advance their fight,' verklaart Chiuri in een statement deze goeie zet van Dior. 'My position in a house as influential as Dior, but also my role as a mother, reminds me every day of my responsibilities and the importance of my actions.'
Rihanna en Dior gaan natuurlijk al way back. Rihanna was het gezicht van de Secret Garden IV-campagne in 2015 en ontwierp een eigen zonnebrillenlijn voor Dior in 2016. Maar van deze nieuwe samenwerking zijn we toch wel het meest fan.
En dan nu, zoals beloofd, die speech. Even lezen. Of kijken.
So I made it to Harvard. Never thought I'd be able to say that in my life, but it feels good. Thank you, Dr. Counter, thank you to the Harvard Foundation, and thank you, Harvard University for this great honor. Thank you. I'm incredibly humbled by this, to be acknowledged at this magnitude for something that in truth I've never wanted credit for.
When I was five or six years old, I remember watching TV and I would see these commercials and I was watching other children suffer in other parts of the world and you know the commercials were [like], 'you can give 25 cents, save a child's life,' you know? And I would think to myself like, I wonder how many 25 cents I could save up to save all the kids in Africa. And I would say to myself you know, 'when I grow up, when I can get rich, I'mma save kids all over the world.' I just didn't know I would be in the position to do that by the time I was a teenager. [Laughs]
At 17 I started my career here in America, and by the age of 18, I started my first charity organization. I went on to team up with other organizations in the following years and met, helped, and even lost some of the most beautiful souls, from six-year-old Jasmina Anema who passed away in 2010 from leukemia, her story inspired thousands to volunteer as donors through DKMS. Fast forward to 2012 and then my grandmother, the late Clara Brathwaite, she lost her battle with cancer, which is the very reason and the driving force behind the Clara Lionel Foundation. We're all human. And we all just want a chance: a chance at life, a chance in education, a chance at a future, really. And at CLF, our mission is to impact as many lives as possible, but it starts with just one. Just one.
As I stare out into this beautiful room, I see optimism, I see hope, I see the future. I know that each and every one of you has the opportunity to help someone else. All you need to do is help one person, expecting nothing in return. To me, that is a humanitarian.
People make it seem way too hard, man. The truth is, and what I want the little girl watching those commercials to know, is you don't have to be rich to be a humanitarian. You don't have to be rich to help somebody. You don't gotta be famous. You don't even have to be college-educated. I mean, I wish I was, I'm not saying you know… [Crowd laughs] Especially today. [laughs] It's true, I might come back but all right. [Crowd cheers]
But it starts with your neighbor, the person right next to you, the person sitting next to you in class, the kid down the block in your neighborhood, you just do whatever you can to help in any way that you can. And today I want to challenge each of you to make a commitment to help one person: one organization, one situation that touches your heart. My grandmother always used to say if you've got a dollar, there's plenty to share. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. It was my honor.
