00:00Black women and black girls are very resilient, but that's just because of the
00:04exposure that we have to trauma. Labor is tied to blackness. There's an
00:10assumption about physical strength that's untrue, and there's an assumption
00:13about emotional strength that is unhealthy. I do not believe that black
00:18girls get to be children. I do not believe black girls are believed. I believe
00:22that joy, laughter, and unity are some of the hallmarks of black girlhood. When I
00:27think about black girlhood, I think about community, but a baby community. Children
00:33hierarchy, like playground politics. Double dutch. I played a lot of double dutch.
00:38Hanging out in the park with my friends. I think about us being silenced. I've
00:43definitely been told to not speak unless I'm spoken to. Told not to be nosy, told
00:48not to talk back. Our parents kind of put it in our heads, or not just our parents,
00:52our elders, put it in our heads that we have to stay to ourselves and make
00:56ourselves smaller. The first time I ever heard the word fast, I heard it in church.
00:59Fast is when a girl is trying to be too grown. A woman will look at a little girl
01:03like Laura fast if she's just expressing herself, but they'll associate that with
01:07her sexuality. I'm absolutely resentful and tired of the fact that girls,
01:14especially little black girls, have to readjust what they do because men can't
01:21check their predatory behavior. One of the things that I absolutely couldn't do as a
01:25black girl growing up was wear red. It was just considered something that
01:30promiscuous women wore. I couldn't wear shorts to school. I had friends who wore
01:33shorts to school, but my mother was like, I'm not their mother. Eyeshadow, red lipstick,
01:38things that were like super cute and girly. The Juicy Couture Swessels were real
01:41popping when I was younger and I could not indulge. People are trying to save black
01:46girls the best way they know how. Rather than controlling the assailant, people
01:51rather control the victim and tell them, just save yourself first. They're raising
01:55their girls with the tools that they were equipped with. It's not right. And I
02:02think that more parents need to make a decision to break the cycle. Black women
02:06are seen as good enough for work and sex. It's a cultural thing that black
02:10women are sex symbols. They were sex slaves. Being a black person is, it can be a
02:17scary thing. I can't count how many times I've left my house and seen abusive acts
02:22against black women in the street and no one do anything. Black men, white men, white
02:27women, anybody except other black women. Like we're attacked, we're violated, and it's, there's no one like to stand up
02:38for us a lot of the time.
02:39Those men didn't care how young or old I was. I want the world to care about us as much
02:45as they care about white girls.
02:46I was like, when we go missing, I want it plastered all over the world. I want signs up. I
02:52want it on milk cartons.
02:53It's to the point where I question myself. Like, I could be sitting down feeling something and be deep in
02:59it and be like, you don't really feel that way. You're being sensitive.
03:02Because I've expressed how I felt in the past and people have told me like, that's not the case. That's
03:08not really what happened.
03:09I felt like reporting to like my parents about anything revolving sex, which is awkward for me.
03:16Who in society believes black women or black girls unless they come with irrefutable proof?
03:22One of the big things that I feel like empowered and enabled R. Kelly to continue his years of sexual
03:29abuse and aggression against black girls
03:31was the fact that there was so much support coming from him from black women.
03:36Black girls are underprotected when we are taught not to advocate for ourselves.
03:42Protection starts with hearing a person's voice and hearing their experience.
03:46I definitely try my hardest to be an advocate for black girls because I think about the little girl that
03:54I was and the advocates that I did not see.
03:57There's people that actually care about what they have to say, like me, like you guys right now.
04:03I hold my male friends accountable.
04:05I try to speak to my little sister or little girls about empowering and making their own choices as black
04:11girls,
04:11but also being super conscious and cognitive of the environment that we live in.
04:15The world believes that black girls are with less than any other group, and that has to change.
04:22Today is the day to start that change.
