The Seed

So one Friday night me, Fancy, Hollywood, and Mo went to see this documentary The Souls of Black Girls. The whole film was created and executed by a crowned fellow SWAGger named Daphne Valerius. The film, meant to be her graduate thesis only, just exploded onto the scene.

The film was about Black girls and how they're affected by the media and images in the media. Basically, out of the mouth of babes, they feel ugly and unwanted by our society. They feel pressure to have the long straight hair and be thin. Pressure to conform to the European standards of beauty constantly shoved in our faces. It's an epidemic, this eroding self esteem.

I know because I've been there. I grew up the fat girl, dieting/starving since the age of ten. I never understood why everything I did was so funny to the world...why laughter seemed to follow me no matter what I did. I'd hide in my room where it was safe... f**king hating myself.

One of the women Daphne interviewed apologized. She apologized because as she put it, "this happened on her watch."

And her comment brought tears to my eyes because...it was happening on my watch too and there I was, knowing intimately the turmoil these girls are going through and yet doing NOTHING about it.

So a seed was planted. In the fertile minds of myself and the other S.W.A.G. visionaries.

As we are in a position to do; we will.

Not on our watch. If we can dry the tears of one woman or inspire pride in one girl, then we have done our job as Colored Girl S.W.A.G.

~Kaboom!