First off, I want to applaud Kiri Davis for making such a remarkable film. I think that message behind this film is just what we need in today's society. We need to redefine our standards of beauty. I think that beauty should no longer be defined as: the more Anglo Saxon features one has the more beautiful a person is. This film made me remember some of my own childhood experiences. I was constantly told that beauty meant having light skin, longer hair and a small nose. I have none of these features. I was told that having "nappy hair" was ugly. When I was three years old, my mother gave me a chemical relaxer to straighten my hair. I guess my natural hair was not beautiful enough. A lot of times the idea that we must have long, straight hair has been ingraved in the minds of young Black girls. We are told to believe that our only hope of being beautiful is to have long, straight hair. In elementary school, I was constantly made fun of because of my skin color. My classmates as well as some of my family members would call me names like Dark Chocolate, Blackie, Midnight. I was always reminded that I was the darkest one in my family. I was especially compared to my twin sister who is lighter than me. My paternal grandmother often referred to us as the light one and the dark one. Once when I was in seventh grade, my mother tried to get me to bleach my skin. She tried to rub that bleaching cream on my skin. My response to her was why do you always try to change me? Why can't you accept me for who I am?
I was also ridiculed the size of my nose. Everyday in school I was always called some of the most hurtful names because of my nose, which is something that I have absolutely no control over. To this day some of my family members remind me of just how big my nose is.
I like this documentary "A Girl Like Me" because it challenges us to redifine beauty and appreaciate the different complexions, hair textures, and nose shapes within the Black community. This documentary encourages us to defy current standards of beauty and create our own.
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This waws a great class discussion for me because I have experienced exatly the opposite of you and many times because of the way i speak or where i live or how i dress have been a problem for others to except. My skin is lighter and if you speak to me on the phone and i did n't tell you my name i have been told that i sound like a white girl all because i speak"properly". what ever that means. Beautyis in the eye of the beholder and it is really a shame that anyone should ever feel bad because of the teaxture of their hair or the color of their skin. Clearly intelligence does not latch to skin color or hair texture, but instead the person who wishes to gain knowlede. This is what people in our wack society need to start realizing.
I feel that no matter what background you come from or what your race or ethnicity is, that you are going to get made fun of, you are going to be told that this is better and you should change. I was made fun of, I was told blonde is better, I was told that glasses were not pretty, girls should be tanner, thats just society. Im not saying that it is right at all, Im just saying that people from every walk of life is going to think that they need to change or be different because that is what we are taught and no one wants to be different, especially in middle and high school. You should embrace who you are and what you look like and it shouldn't matter the color of your skin or the texture of your hair, because every single person is beautiful!
I agree with Megan 100%!
I just wish society could accept these differences, no matter what race or ethnicity a person is. I think thats why I liked this video so much... Hopefully it will show the world that it's ok for each person to look different. That we don't need to change our appearances to fit in...
Growing up, I was made fun of for being too pale, for wearing glasses, and for being too skinny and scrawny. It's not as if we are all cookie-cutter images of each other, every single person is different. I fully believe that its those differences, those individualities, that makes each person beautiful. Because, really, why would you want to look exactly like everyone else?
WHat Tanika said was very insightful. It remind dme of a book that would be good for a younger child going through a similar situation. The book is called " The Skin I'm In" by Sharon Flake. It is fiction, but it talks about the stresses other people make of skin color, hair, types, and dressing well. It also talks about the proper way or "ghetto" ways of speaking. I have had many problems, but opposite of Tanika. I have been called an oreo, a lame, and asked why I speak the way I do. That name calling just motivates me to become stronger, and use my intelligence to dfeat others thouhts. It is our job as future teachers to help our students feel comfortable in "the skin their in".Do we deal with this issues of color, or do we throw them out? We should find some way to help our students embrace their differences at school even if someone at home is telling them its ugly. Maybe the parents need to be taught a lesson themselves for putting these negative thoughts in their children's heads. We have to peel the labels off of our students, and make them equal.
With all of this image stuff goin' on I have some comments on that. One of the interesting things about me is that I am mostly Italian, but people who don't know who I am see me as two different people during different times of the year. If you catch me in the summer time, I am considered a Hispanic. If you see me during the winter you might call me a white girl. Either way it gets annoying even if people aren't being mean about it and are just curious of my heritage. I am Italian, German and French according to my family history. What confuses people about me being Hispanic is that in the summer I can walk outside and in one day get a very dark tan and with my thick brown hair and brown eyes, and TA DA! I amazingly become Hispanic. Its amazing how that works sometimes.
Another thing that is different about me is that I come from a suburban or city area but have the speech and sometimes drawl of a Southern accent. I do NOT talk with proper grammar (and with going to be a teacher trying to do a bit better at it) but when I am in just normal conversation the drawl can come out. And if I truly want to I can add the Southern accent as well. This is due to half of my family living in a town of 200 people out in the middle of rural Ohio. Also, the drag racing adds to the culture of it all.
So in essence I agree with Megan that we are all different and should embrace our differences and enjoy them. I enjoy being completely different and making people guess where I come from. Though I don't always appreciate being called Mexican from complete strangers. I have even been talked to in complete Spanish before and then made fun of that I don't know my heritage when I couldn't respond back to them in Spanish and that I should be a shamed to call my self a Hispanic and when I let them finish and reply "Mi Italiana" they stop and walk away.
I love how only the girls commented on this one HA! But anyway...
I am from a city outside of St. Louis, from a high school that is half white and half African American. I date both black and white men, I wear clothes like RocaWear to Forever 21, I own black Air Force Ones and Converse shoes, I listen to both Rap and Country, I have a group of white friends and a group of black friends, and sometimes I say "what up ya'll" while other times I say "hello, how are you". I am not going to lie, I have identity issues, but these issues I need to deal with myself. I am not fake, I am not trying to pretend that I am someone that I am not. No matter how much my parents say no, or my friends shake my head at me, it is just the way I am.
I believe regardless of who your are, where you come from, what color or size you are, you experience a time in your life in which you question yourself and who you are. There might be times in which you question yourself, deal with it, and never change. There might be other times in which you try on a new skin, walk in it for a while, and see how you like it.
No many how many times I look to the sky and ask why can't people take me the way as I am, or why can't I except that fact that I am white girl from a good neighborhood, I still wake up the same person as I was the night before.
Kat, I understand living the divided lifestyles. I have a friend that wears Baby Phat and Rocawear and she is Caucasian. Her and I laugh because I wear jeans from Maurice's and Tommy Hilfiger, and I have never worn the brands she wears and society has termed to be for African-Americans. No one looks at me for wearing Maurice's jeans or clothes, but if they do I don't notice or care. The clothes we wear and the language we use to communicate with others is not a definer of who some one is. I agree with everyone on accepting differences in ourselves and appreciating the complexity of each new person we encounter. I gave up a long time ago on trying to fit in or blend in. I am who I am and as hard as I have tried on a campus of almost 20,000 students, I haven't met anyone like me. We have all had unique situations and experiences that define us. I have been viewed so differently in different states and countries. In Ireland, when visiting family, people in the area call me Irish...thats it. They aren't denying a part of my identity by not calling me African-Irish, they are unifying their society. The citizens of Ireland have various European backgrounds, but regardless they are still Irish, not French-Irish. There I am Irish, but in the U.S. my label is African American, therefore I feel I am being forced to deny the Irish side of me. I wish it was just she is American. When I lived in CA and FL everyone assumed I was Hispanic and spoke to me in Spanish or asked me to translate. Why do we need dual identities for anyone with a little pigment in their skin in the U.S.? I rarely hear anyone walk up to my mother and call her Irish-American, she is just American. She has brown hair, brown eyes, and a fair complexion with freckles. During my mother's teen-age years blond hair and blue eyes were the ideal in the media. The dual identity in this country causes segregation and division in society. Acceptance of ourselves and others is the only way to stop the negative circle.
I do not know what it is like to grow up with people telling you you’re to dark or you’re to light. However, I did grow up as the white girl in a large Native American family. I am one of those people who have three families. I have my mom, dad, and step-dads families. When I am with my mom’s family or my dad’s family you can always tell we are related. Even with my cousins kids you know there is some type of relationship there. When you put me with my stepfamily you would never know. You would think I was somebody’s girlfriend who came along to meet everyone. My mom is one of those people who if she is outside for 20 minutes in the summer she can become incredibly tan. She can actually get just about as dark as my step-grandfather who is just about 100% Native American. I did not get that lucky. I have three colors I am paper white, redish pink, or slightly tan. In order to get slightly tan I have to spend hours outside with lots of sunscreen on. It takes a lot of effort and I have stopped caring. I grew up in a huge loving family but looking at pictures you can tell that I am not related to a lot of them. My step family does not care because just like my parents families they have watched me grow up and know the person I really am. My step family never has seemed to care that I was always the fair skinned one who always needed to reapply sunscreen while we out. There is one person who does seem to be bothered by the fact that I am fair and that is my mom. She is constantly telling me to go out and get a tan or to go tanning. I am comfortable being pale but it seems to me that my mom is not ok with the fact that I inherited my skin tone from my father’s family. I am lucky with the fact that none of my families ever cared about how I looked. I know that others are not as lucky. Life is about finding who you are and being comfortable in your own skin. I am more comfortable in my skin that others and I can only hope that other people will one day be as comfortable if not more comfortable in their own skin than I am.
I can really relate to what Ashley said about being an Italian! I am an Italian as well, but I am also German and Hungarian. In the summer the Italian girl comes out, and in the winter the German & Hungarian comes out. People have asked me if I am Latina, and I've viewed that in both good and bad ways. I'm from Chicago originally, but have moved to a suburb of Chicago. I have the "Chicago accent" so that sometimes emphasizes it a little.
Sharli-
Although I completely agree with you when you say, "The clothes we wear and the language we use to communicate with others is not a definer of who some one is," unfortunately, MANY times people DO define others in those terms. There's so much more to a person than what the clothes they wear, what their hair looks like, how they say "Hello."
Ok...this is kind of off topic, but I thought it would best fit here and I did not want to start a new thread. But...for any of the girls here (and guys if you are interested) I think it would be interesting if we all shared some story about our childhood. Or a school experience....something. I started off at a public school with a few African-American friends but soon transfered to an all-white school...which was disappointing. Since then I have not had friends of any other race and I feel, especially now, that I have missed out on a well rounded social experience. I honestly wish I could follow around the girls in "A Girl Like Me" and see their lives. I like to see how others are and I like to be able to relate to people-of any race. I just can't believe I go to a school with 22,000 (?) kids and I haven't yet had the opportunity to hear opinions or talk to a diverse group of people. I love this class because I get to hear points of views and stories from intelligent and thoughtful people. And I think it is so important that this class isn't just a bunch of white kids wanting to teach in the city. It's a forum for change and understanding and I wish more people could participate in a class such as this. I still feel like I am ignorant and going to say something that offends someone just because I don't really know what kind of things do offend others. Okay this post is all over the place....but basically...girls (and guys)...I may be going out on a limb...but let's maybe do something social outside of class? No? Yes? I think we would be surprised that there are more "Girls Like Me"
I like that idea, Kirstin. Anybody in?
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