The Human Rights Campaign awarded
openly gay Orange is the New Black actress Samira Wiley with
its Visibility Award last weekend during HRC’s 2015 North Carolina Gala. Known
for her role as inmate Poussey Washington, Wiley reflected on her public image
and coming out experience at the gala.
Said Wiley:
"I believe that our self worth and how we are taught to think
about ourselves and the world around us almost always begins at home. I have
two parents that not only tolerated who I am, but accepted me and embraced me.
They embraced me before I came out, and they embraced me after. They told me
everyday that I am enough. I am enough just of being who I am and that that
alone makes me whole.
"It’s interesting to me that tonight I am here receiving the
visibility award…Over the past few years since my own public image has
increased tenfold, I have been overwhelmed to witness the profound ways that I
am able to make a difference simply by living my life openly and with
love."
Wiley is a Juilliard School graduate and played the role of Maria
in Love’s Labour’s Lost by The Public Theater in 2011. The
actress is currently in a relationship with Orange is the New Black writer
Lauren Morelli. Watch the Wiley’s gala speech.
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