[BLOG] Rest In Power: Karyn Washington, Founder Of #ForBrownGirls…
I came across this story on Naturally Moi and I instantly had to pause.
If you don’t know who this beautiful young lady is, she founded a site called For Brown Girls, which is a blog dedicated to empowering and uplifting black women.
Pharrell’s album cover, “G I R L,” sparked an interesting conversation last year about media and self-esteem. He was dragged across the interwebs for his omission of a dark-skinned girl on his cover. There were good points made on both sides of the argument, however, Pharrell himself seemed to have completely missed the boat on what could’ve been an honest and enlightened conversation. He defended himself by referencing older girlfriends and music videos, missing the point of the argument.
Media perception and self-esteem go hand-in-hand. If you’re being force-fed a certain image that looks nothing like you, of course you begin to develop an understanding that that’s the preferred image. You begin to question your own looks. Everyone’s done this. If you haven’t, I don’t believe you. It’s natural to feel this way.
It’s ignorant to believe that everyone grows up in a household that nurtures their self-image/self-esteem. For instance, I grew up in a household that taught me at a very young age that black is beautiful. They made sure I knew and appreciated my culture so that when I’m older, no one can tell me different. And believe me a lot of people will try. Including my own black men.
The media is a powerful tool and unless our black creators are pushing for us, who will? You’ve got to dig deep for positive images of dark-skinned women in media. There’s no way in hell can you say that there’s an equal representation of black women in media. It’s factually untrue. We want to see ourselves and there’s nothing wrong with that. Pharrell and others saying self-esteem should come from within aren’t wrong, but they’re speaking from a privilege that everyone isn’t granted. Those sistas who grow up in broken situations, should gather this strength from where exactly?
It’s time for black content creators’ to step up and accept responsibility for putting these images out there. I do. My whole operation is built on pushing out these images.
To bring this rant to a close, I don’t want to necessarily associate one with the other because we have no idea what Karyn was going through and I won’t pretend to. I will say that we need to take more time throughout the day to tell the people will love that we love them and for the folks we don’t know throw as much positivity their way because we never know what people are going through.
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