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
00:51our 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
01:25a black 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.
01:36Eyeshadow, red lipstick. Things that were like super cute and girly. The juicy couture
01:41sweatshirts were real popping when I was younger and I could not indulge. People are
01:45trying to save black girls the best way they know how. Rather than controlling
01:50the assailant, people rather control the victim and tell them just save yourself
01:54first. They're raising their girls with the tools that they were equipped with.
02:01It's not right and I think that more parents need to make the decision to break
02:04the cycle. Black women are seen as good enough for work and sex. It's a cultural
02:09thing that black women are sex symbols. They were sex slaves. Being a black
02:14person is, it can be a scary thing. I can't count how many times I've left my
02:20house and seen abusive acts against black women in the street and no one do
02:25anything. Black men, white men, white women, anybody except other black women.
02:31Like, we're attacked, we're violated, and it's, there's no one like to stand up for
02:38us a lot of the time. Those men didn't care how young or old I was. I want the
02:43world to care about us as much as they care about white girls. Like, when we go
02:47missing, I want it plastered all over the world. I want signs up, I want it on milk
02:52cartons. It's to the point where I question myself. Like, I could be sitting
02:57down feeling something. Be deep in it and be like, you don't really feel that way.
03:01You're being sensitive. Because I've expressed how I felt in the past and
03:05people have told me, like, that's not the case. That's not really what happened.
03:09I felt like reporting to, like, my parents about anything revolving sex, which is
03:14awkward for me. Who in society believes black women or black girls unless they
03:20come with irrefutable proof? One of the big things that I feel like empowered and
03:26enabled R. Kelly to continue his years of sexual abuse and aggression against
03:30black girls was the fact that there was so much support coming from him from
03:35black women. Black girls are underprotected when we are taught not to advocate for
03:42ourselves. Protection starts with hearing a person's voice and hearing their
03:45experience. I definitely try my hardest to be an advocate for black girls because
03:52I think about the little girl that I 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
04:01guys right now. I hold my male friends accountable. I try to speak to my little
04:07sister or little girls about empowering and making their own choices as black
04:11girls but also being super conscious and cognitive of the environment that we
04:15live in. The world believes that black girls are with less than any other group and
04:20that has to change. Today is the day to start that change.
