Speaking of self-hatred....
Every culture has its "problem" physical trait. Whether it's curly hair, curves, skinniness, height, eye color, etc. The Black American community is not the only community that struggles with the issue of skin color. Like most biases it has deep historical roots. Yet what's most interesting is how it has manifested over the centuries; it's existence is blatantly obvious but its consequences are never discussed. They remain hidden not only to the larger population, making cross-cultural understanding and empathy difficult, but skin-tone biases have become so naturalized both in and out of the Black community that those who suffer the most are barely conscious of it. The little girls who pick the lighter-skinned dolls or white dolls as "smarter", "prettier", and more "good" than the darker dolls are not knowingly choosing to hate themselves. That is why it's so important to give voices to these silent stories of internalized hatred; hatred so buried deep within that the sufferer doesn't even know she can not hate herself. Films and stories like this function as ways of bringing the unconscious to the surface and inspiring resolution---if done correctly.
If done poorly they're merely pity parties; collective groups of victims finding strength and encouragement in their numbers and survival, and empowerment in the old "Suddenly I'm not so alone!" feeling. Don't get me wrong, that within itself is an amazing and powerful sentiment that is worth giving weight to. But it provides little momentum--collective sharing is a unifying action, but not a mobilizer. When injustice and suffering is prevalent, awareness should be followed by action.
This is one thing hopefully Dark Girls brings that Good Hair, another promising documentary, did not: action in the form of knowledge. Hair, conceived and made by Chris Rock, did shed some light on important facts of hair-consumption in the Black community but it failed to answer the question that it presented in it's trailer: why is Chris Rock's daughter taught to believe her hair is bad? Instead of finding the answer, the film simply portrayed women who already believed their hair was bad and their outrageous spending habits, as if to chastise them for not thinking otherwise rather than revealing why it is so difficult for them to do so.
The Trailer for Dark Girls, which like Good Hair is a film about black women made by black men, shows the same glossing-over potential as Hair. There's a lot of thorough and beautiful storytelling but little history. An example of important history is the fact that the hair and skin-tone biases are related to each other, and that both have to do with slavery and certain social standards that were set during those times and upheld by popular culture and media in the 19th and 20th centuries, a trend that continues to this very day. It's important to understand how these biases relate to even broader histories, like those of class and gender in America, and how these tensions intersect with Black American identities to produce such unique problems. It's these revelations and arguments that can start real conversations, and all people inside and outside of the community need to be having real conversations. The more awareness coupled with active conversations and calls for change, the more likely we as a collective sociaty can truly overcome this otherwise ignored century-long issue. For only when we all come together, Black AND White, rich AND poor, male AND female, gay AND straight, gender conformitive AND gender variant (because sexuality and gender expression are very much linked to the hair and skin-color biases)--only in this unity can we truly demand a change to our values and practices that create the deep pain present in the Dark Girls trailer. This film was able to be made because these changes have not occurred, and they will continue to not occur if we all don't recognize and check our participation in their existence.
Dark Girls is to be released in the Fall/Winter of 2011. For more information about this truly important and moving film, "Like" it's Facebook page (the conversations on the page alone are a sight to see) and visit its website, officialdarkgirlsmovie.com
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