I was part of a show called 'Manifest Equality' in Los Angeles in

In the words of iO Tillett Wright, artist and truth-teller of the modern age, we find a revelation born not from theory, but from lived experience: “I was part of a show called ‘Manifest Equality’ in Los Angeles in 2010, and I realized there was a disconnect between people who are gay or have gay friends and are gay-friendly, and people who think they don’t know any gay people.” These words, though spoken in the language of our time, carry the gravity of an ancient truth—that ignorance is not always born of malice, but of distance. Where there is no connection, there can be no compassion. And where human beings cease to see one another, they begin to forget that all souls are reflections of the same divine light.

The origin of this quote lies in a moment of clarity during the Manifest Equality exhibition in 2010, a gathering that sought to celebrate and defend equal rights through art and expression. It was there that Wright, surrounded by images of love and struggle, recognized the invisible chasm that divides the known from the unknown. Many who believed in tolerance and fairness in the abstract had never truly met those for whom equality was not a concept but a plea. The realization struck like lightning: the greatest barrier to understanding was not hatred, but separation—the illusion that “those people” exist somewhere far away, when in truth they are one’s neighbors, one’s coworkers, one’s kin.

From the dawn of civilization, sages and poets have taught that recognition is the beginning of justice. In the ancient world, the philosopher Diogenes wandered the streets of Athens with a lantern, saying he was “searching for an honest man.” He sought to remind his people that truth cannot be found in theory—it lives in faces, in lives, in hearts. Wright’s insight walks this same path. To know of people is not the same as to know them. To believe in equality from a distance is easy; to live it in relationship—with empathy, with awareness—is the true work of the spirit.

The disconnect Wright describes is the wound of the modern world: we build walls of comfort around our lives and fill them with reflections of ourselves. We convince ourselves that we are enlightened because we believe the right words, yet we rarely step beyond our circle to see the human beings those words are meant to protect. Thus, prejudice survives not only in hatred, but in isolation. It withers not through argument, but through encounter—through the moment when one looks into another’s eyes and says, “You are like me.”

Consider the story of Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. His greatest triumph was not policy, but visibility. He understood that hearts change not through rhetoric, but through relationship. “Come out,” he urged his community, “because they vote for us two to one when they know one of us.” Like Wright, he knew that when people see the humanity of those they once imagined as distant or strange, fear dissolves like mist before the sun. Awareness, not argument, is the path to transformation.

Wright’s words remind us that art, too, is a bridge. Through her lens and her projects—such as Self-Evident Truths, where she photographed thousands who identified somewhere along the LGBTQ+ spectrum—she sought to replace abstraction with presence. Each portrait said silently but powerfully: Here I am. I exist. Look at me and see yourself reflected. In this way, her work carried forward the timeless mission of the artist: to restore the broken connections between people, to turn strangers into kin.

The lesson, then, is simple but profound: ignorance is cured not by ideology, but by intimacy. Seek to know those whose lives differ from yours. Speak less about principles and more with people. Look upon others not as symbols of a cause, but as living souls, as vessels of the same breath that animates you. Only then can equality move from word to reality—from the walls of galleries and legislatures into the beating heart of humanity itself.

So let this teaching endure: understanding begins with encounter. Go forth and meet the world not with fear, but with curiosity. Break bread with those you do not understand. Listen to stories that unsettle your comfort. For every barrier that falls between “us” and “them” brings us closer to the truth that there is, in the end, only us. And when we see that truth, as iO Tillett Wright saw it amidst the lights of Los Angeles, we will find that equality is not a dream to manifest—it is already alive in every human face, waiting only to be recognized.