In just seven minutes, the award-winning documentary “A Girl Like Me” tackles the controversial subject of self-hatred in the black community. What began as a school project for 16 year old Kiri Davis quickly turned into a disturbing yet honest look at the negative feelings many blacks(especially black teen girls) harbor regarding their skin, hair and place in society.
This film was an integral part of the Science Museum of Minnesota’s special exhibit RACE: Are We So Different. Although the exhibit recently closed in St. Paul, it begins a five year nationwide tour with the first stop in Detroit. The film is also available on You Tube as well as a few other websites.
By conducting two separate activities, Kiri demonstrated how in our society, beauty and whiteness are synonymous. First, she interviewed several high school girls who openly talked about their skin and their hair. The message they have received is that to be beautiful, you need long straight hair and light skin. Straight hair, more commonly referred to as “good hair” is something many blacks are constantly striving to attain.
A person has good hair if it is naturally straight and resembles white hair. Since this is generally not the natural state of most black hair, women undergo a chemical process called “relaxing” in order to straighten the hair and make it look less kinky. Kinky hair has a negative connotation associated with being a slave. They also talk about people they know who have attempted to lighten their skin color by using skin bleaching creams. Others intentionally refuse to date dark skinned men because they don’t want to risk having dark genes in their gene pool.
The second component was equally poignant. Kiri repeated the same experiment conducted over 50 years ago, which was the crux of the case in Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education. In the original experiment, black school children were shown two dolls; one black and the other white. The children were asked which doll would they prefer to play with and overwhelmingly they preferred the white doll.
Kiri conducted the same test with black preschoolers to see if the results would be different. Of the 21 children tested, 16 preferred the white doll over the black doll. Watching the children respond to the questions regarding the dolls is difficult to watch. The most painful is the last girl’s responses to Kiri’s questions.
Kiri: “Can you show me the doll that looks bad?”
Girl: Picks up the black doll.
Kiri: “Why is she bad?”
Girl: “Because it’s black.”
Kiri: “And why do you think [the white doll] is a nice doll?”
Girl: “Because she’s white.”
Kiri: “Can you give me the doll that looks like you.”
Girl: Reluctantly gives her the black doll.
The film concludes with the teens talking about why they believe blacks appear to have negative feelings regarding being black. One girl comments “We’re ripped of our culture…you don’t know where you’re from. It brings on anger in black females. They feel they have the right to disown any African roots.” Another girl speculates “you’re missing a part of you…It keeps us at a loss because we’re busy searching for it while everyone else is always throwing their ideas and what they believe should be.” The insight these young ladies provide is very profound.
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As a black woman, I am painfully the media outlets have chosen to portray only one form of beauty. Go to any supermarket magazine section and count how many actually show a black woman (other than “O” and Essence) on the cover. On any given month, magazines like Glamour, Cosmo, Allure, Bazaar, In Style, Marie Claire, Redbook, Self, Shape and so many, many more routinely feature attractive white women on the cover. These magazines are difficult to avoid; often they are at the checkout, which causes their message to be repeatedly and subtly conveyed to anyone waiting in line. If you in some way resemble the ladies on the cover, you may not even notice the uniformity of these covers; however, if you don’t, constantly seeing these images can began to whittle away at your self image.
Also, as a parent, I am constantly looking for books that show children of color (especially black children) in positive, heroic roles. All parents seek out books with positive messages to help instill proper values in our children; this mission is even more difficult when you have a child of color. As much as I enjoyed reading The Magic Treehouse, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Spiderwick Chronicles to him, I can’t help but wonder why the publishers rarely distribute books with black kids having exciting and imaginative adventures.
I find it hard to believe such books are not being written; more likely, they are being passed over by publishers. Searching for books with main characters resembling my six year old son having exciting adventures is a constant quest for me. More often than not I come up empty-handed. The lack of such material can adversely affect a child’s self image.
I can relate to the feelings all of kids express in this film because growing up I was influenced in much the same way. As a little girl, I often wished I was white and it was not unusual for me to walk around the house with a towel on my head so I could pretend to have long hair. Why? Because based on the messages I received (mostly from 70’s TV like The Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch etc.), being white was not only beautiful it was also fun.
There are no answers in the film; however, recognizing this is a significant problem people are looking at ways to address this issue. One idea is to demand an end to the negative images the entertainment industry continually uses to portray black in movies, TV programs and music. The corporate entities controlling production of these negative images have no incentive to change things, unless consumers start demanding better representation of all people (by not spending money on these negative images).
Stereotypes hurt us all as a nation, because they keep us in state of fear and distrust of each other. Some entertainers are trying to counter the massive negative messages. Singer/songwriter India.Arie’s song “I Am Not My Hair” is a wake up call to the black community to stop judging one another on something as superficial as hair and look beyond that to the person inside.
In addition to forcing the media to change, I also believe there is another method that can help. The teens in the film commented that not knowing our roots has left us with an emptiness which prevents us from having a stronger sense of self identity. One way to begin restoring our lost past is with mitochondrial DNA testing (mtDNA). Last year, thanks to an mtDNA test I successfully traced my maternal line to the Temne Tribe in Sierra Leone.
To now be able to point to a spot on a map and know that is where I am from has given me a new sense of self which I have in turn been able to instill in my sons. MtDNA testing is a great equalizer and as more people get tested, that sense of alienation will eventually disappear.
These are just a couple of ideas that can help eliminate the problems depicted in Davis’ film. I’m sure there are other possible solutions. What really matters is not what is done but that something is done. Otherwise, we’ll still be addressing these same problems fifty years from now.
