Posted by Yolanda Webb on August 26, 2009 at 11:48pm
How long do we let other people define us? How long do we delete the blogs, throw out the newsletter or articles, or change the channel when the message is about us?How long do we keep trying to conform to the world's standard of beauty...while at the same time damaging our girls that can't fit into that standard and then turning around and criticizing or victimizing them when they act out, are promiscuous or do all kinds of things to their God-given beauty and end up pregnant, in jail or on welfare.Where are we (Black Women of the burbs and Middle Class) when we shake our heads sitting on pews in church while wearing our weaves and designer clothes.Now don't misunderstand I am not hating on my middle class sisters ( for I am one of them and write this blog to myself just as much as to anyone), what I am saying is simple..when do we show up? At what expense (the cost of future generations of confident black women from all walks of life is at stake) are we willing to let the statistics continue to speak for the fact that we are comfortable sitting back and doing nothing.Where did our souls go? Where did the souls of Mama and Big Mama go? We looked out for and told them they were beautiful, worthy, talented and expected to succeed in who they were...not in trying to be or become the media images they see on tv.Filmmaker Daphne Valerius takes a look at the relationship between self-esteem and media images of African American Women in her documentary...The Souls of Black Girls, "I think this piece resonates across race and gender because it is a piece that is the voice of the victim and not the voice of the victimizer of spokeman, its our hurts, our pains, our insecurities, our story that no one else can tell but us, " she says.http://www.soulsofblackgirls.com/Dr. Dorothy Height says of the film, "Too often our girls do not rise too their full potential because they are so affected by the image others project of them."According to a new study on the lives of teenage Black girls,... they benefit most from a strong sense of racial identity. Girls who thought being black (in all its blackness, hair, eye color, lips, hips, etc) did better in shcool and were more likely to practice safer sex.The study commissioned by The Black women for Black Girls Giving Circle in NYC and researched and written by Dr. Avis A. Jones-DeWeever found striking differences between girls who self-identified as afrocentric and girls who didn't. Afrocentric girls received higher grades, had strong familia, spiritual and romantic relationships and were three times more likely to believe that they would achieve goals such as college or careers.Take the time today help mentor, motivate or save the Soul of a Black Girl. E'LON and YOU redefining our own image. We Are More Than Enough!Yolanda
Comments