Dark Girls (documentary preview)
A friend sent this to me and I wanted to share. Within our culture and society, we have been taught to hate ourselves, including the color of our skin. Dark Girls is a documentary exploring the deeply rooted biases and attitudes about skin color, particularly dark skinned women within and outside the Black culture.
The AAWIC Film Festival and A Conversation With Ntozake Shange
This past Saturday the 13th Annual African American Women in Cinema (AAWIC) Film Festival, held in New York City showcased and honored a few of the industry’s most talented women. The 2010 honorees were Lisa Cortés, executive producer of the award winning drama Precious, Grace Blake, producer of the critically acclaimed Silence of the Lambs and School Daze and most notably, Ntozake Shange, award winning poet, playwright and author of the literary classic, For the Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.
A review of “For Colored Girls” by a WOMAN of color…
I saw For Colored Girls this past weekend and left with mixed emotions. Mixed emotions because of the black woman plight stereotypes that always seem to be prevalent in his films.
Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem is one of race and feminism, spoken through each woman [indicative of her color], a story of pain, anger, courage, self-love, and more. If solely looking at the interpretation of her work to the big screen, he did a good job of keeping her language in there. He picked some notable actresses such as Whoopi Goldberg, Phylicia Rashad, and Loretta Devine to hold these characters down (which they did) but it would’ve been nice to see some fresh faces.
And A Little Child Shall Lead Them…
Early last week the world was introduced to a little brown Muppet girl who sang joyously about her hair and the great pride and freedom she had because of it. Her song was an innocent serenade and statement of love she had for herself and her crown and glory. The concept was created by Joey Mazzarino, head writer at the nationally syndicated children’s television show “Sesame Street.” Mazzarino and his wife adopted an Ethiopian girl who began saying negative things about her ethnic hair and comparing her hair to the long blonde hair of the dolls in which she played. (Writer’s Note: This adds to my reasoning of allowing my future children to only play with dolls of color.) The writer wanted to create a positive image for his young child to help her understand that her hair is uniquely wonderful, but most importantly it is hers to do with what she pleases, whether she wears it straight and silky, curly, or corn rowed, it is apart of her and is no less than that of her counterparts.
The R’ebel Mag interviews Andre Torres, founder of Wax Poetics
Check out the latest interview featuring the ladies of The R’ebel Mag on Brn Skn Speaks radio. Ishshah, Lady Spyce, and I had a chance to build with Andre Torres, the founder and editor-in-chief of Wax Poetics. Get to know him HERE.
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