Soul of a Black Girl

Wow! Where do I begin? I am almost overwhelmed with thoughts and emotions. Tired as heck but I have to get this off my chest...

Today I was forwarded some information from a wonderful friend about a screening happening at the E Street Cinema (downtown, 11th & E right across from ESPN Zone, H&M and the new ZARA!)called "The Souls of Black Girls" as part of the Black Docs 2008: "Through Their Eyes" film festival. Can I just say how happy I am that I was spontaneous and cancelled my hit the gym and go home & crash plans to attend this? I'm giving myself a hand for this one...

Anyway, I will in NO WAY attempt to write a review of this documentary for several reasons:

1. I am not a film critic. I'll leave that up to Egbert and them.
2. I probably would not do it any justice because (see reason #1).
3. That would defeat the purpose of the theme "Through their Eyes".

I will instead share my overall impression of the film and give some honest feedback through my eyes and experience.

In my opinion this piece, written , produced, and edited by Daphne S. Valerius, a Ronald McNair Scholar who graduated from St. Johns University and one BAD A$$ SISTAH (featuring commentary by Jada Pinkett Smith, Regina King, CHUCK freaking D, Michaela Angela Davis, Dr. Lez Edmond, among others and of course young black girls) does an excellent job of articulating and arguing the thesis that "black girls are suffering from a self image disorder". It ventures further to ask the question, "what is the cure for self image disorder"? That's rhetorical of course and could never be answered through one film, one conversation, or summed up with one answer. But it gives food for thought and in some cases, cause for soul searching.

One of the resounding themes and a personal take away for me is that to "cure" the self image disorder in our black girls, we have to be ACCOUNTABLE and HONEST! I can't help but repeat this theme in my head over and over again...It's interesting to me that I was blessed to experience this screening because just the other day I started (but did not finish) a blog post reflecting on where I have progressed from regarding my own self image issues. So since we're being challenged by this piece to be honest, I'll begin with me..

It quickly became evident to me as a young girl growing up, through the lack of real representation in popular media and being called "tar baby", "darkie" "big nose/lips" and other choice names, that mine was not the standard/accepted/esteemed image of beauty. Of course at 6/7 I could not articulate it as such but these experiences framed an image of myself that I struggled with for....Gosh!

As I got older, I often found myself wishing I had "her" skin tone, "that" nose, "those" lips and maybe "my" hair because I had always been told that it was "good" although it belonged to a dark girl...getting even older, I bought and clung to the notion of being "cute for a dark skinned girl" and held onto it for dear life. My codependency on this image became evident when I made the decision to embrace my natural beauty and stop relaxing my hair. I had begun to "find myself" and realized that (for me) the person on the inside was not being accurately depicted on the outside. I wanted to be natural as I felt that it would better tell of the self awareness, consciousness, and self acceptance that I was coming into and the metamorphosis that I was going through. There was just one little problem...I had a Boyfriend who made it very clear to me (on several occasions) that he adored my long "pretty" hair.

So I proceeded to write Boyfriend a 5 page letter (read: dissertation) on why I believed that black women for social, psychological, economical, biological, (oh I got deep) and other reasons should cease and desist with the creamy crack (read: relaxer) and my decision to embrace the natural me. At the time I called it "educating" him, but what I was really doing was preparing him mentally to accept an image of me that I felt would make him not LOVE ME....(so the tears are literally beginning to flow now)....

I thought that my self worth (even as I embraced this "real" me and was quickly becoming the nappy hair ambassador within my circle) was found in my "nice" hair, the hair that I was so happy to have because it was my only redeeming quality as a dark skinned girl. I was unsure of who/what I would be without the "P with the long, pretty hair" reputation. Boyfriend's protests of "but Gem I love you for you", fell on deaf ears, because I was convinced otherwise......

It was only recently that I realized how flawed I was in my thought process at the time.

So tonight as I experienced this film, I thought to myself, "Gem, you've come a long way baby".."But what about your little sisters"? "What about the women in the townships of South Africa that can't hide the grotesque consequences of skin bleaching on their faces, the evidence of their self hatred on display for all the world to see"? "At least you had the luxury of hiding yours".....

See this film, although it (the subject matter) may not be anything enlightening among the "enlightened" set, does provoke a dialogue of honesty, realness, and accountability that is also beginning to translate into ACTION. Our girls now, not only have to contend with the European standard of beauty, they must also fight against the "you must look/dress/act/walk/shake it like a salt shaker/stripper/whore for a man to want or desire you" image..WOW, they/WE got it bad.

I hope more YOUNG girls get to see this film and definitely more men and boys (they were disturbingly absent from the audience). We need to be real and honest, we need to stand accountable for what we're allowing (through media images) to be done to our baby girls who will eventually become the young women, the wives, and the mothers of our future baby girls, who will become the young women........

for more screening dates/info on the film please visit:

The Souls Of Black Girls