Tag Archives: Black Girls

I Am Not My Hair

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“Look at what you be in, hair weaves like Europeans, fake nails done by Koreans”

Three weeks ago, I decided that I was going to cut every last strand of my hair.  Keep in mind, that straightened, my hair stops at the middle of my back and being of African-American descent, once cut, it takes one powerful act of God just to get an inch of it back.  Obviously, on this particular day, I hadn’t put much thought into all that.   What actually was going through my head was, ”Why would anyone want this? Hair is so over-rated, it’s too expensive to maintain and I am so damn tired of the upkeep.”  I detested my hair and that morning I was more than determined to get it off my head.  So the very next day, I called up my beautician, made a same day appointment, went into the shop, boldly sat down in the chair and..

I digress…

Right here is where I’m supposed to get all holier than thou and break out in some soulful India Arie song about how much I love my entire entity but right here, I’m going to tell you the truth.  I always say the truth is the only concept that has not been tried.  The truth is, what we as a culture need to share more of so that we can understand that our thoughts and opinions are not only our own. The truth is what we need in order to progress.  Now that I got that off of my chest, I will proceed.

The very next day, I called up my beautician, made a same day appointment, went into the shop, boldly sat down in the chair and the moment those silver pointy scissors came at my head, I freaked out!  I’m not ashamed to say that it took an entire 2.5 seconds either.   I was beyond petrified about losing my hair and the reason I was afraid was because I knew that I would be less appealing to this very superficial home we call America.  So sufficed to say, I was far from up for the challenge.

So, instead, I asked my beautician to hook me up with a really short Meagan Good quick weave. Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, “quick weave,” here is the definition: a quick weave is similar to a wig that women wear on their heads.  The hair is wrapped under a wig cap. The cap is placed on the head, and then the weave is glued on the cap in a circular direction.  Now that we got that cleared up, back to my story. “Thing” is what I called my quick weave.  This “thing” was painfully uncomfortable. It literally felt like a bunch of needles poking the circumference of my entire head but once I got past that and the itching, I thought that it looked amazing.

I was feeling myself and so that night I went out on the town, as I sometimes do. I thought that I looked fabulous, but then I noticed that I wasn’t getting the attention that I was accustomed to from the men folk.  I was even more surprised when I noticed that some of the same men, who usually try to holla at me, ignored me.  Instead, they were on the floor dancing with the Beyoncé’s. Now, I know that some of you are saying “ Well maybe that means your face ain’t that pretty” but I   would like to believe that I’m a seemingly attractive person with minimal issues. I don’t look in the mirror and see skinny when I’m fat or fat when I’m skinny nor do I have a distorted image of the real world so when I tell you that my appearance is slightly above average, take me for my word.

Martin Luther King said, “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  Our character is the only thing that sets us apart, makes us special, and makes us different from any other person. How can outer beauty be more important?  Does artificial enhancements or loving the outer more than the inner mean that you’re lacking in character?

I once believed that endorsing anything artificial meant that you were unfulfilled and that somewhere inside of you there lacked a certain level of depth, but as I get older, I realize that nothing is black or white. For our African American women, especially those with natural hair, sometimes sewing it up is simply more convenient. How else would you be able to sweat out your hair at the gym and go to work looking like you just stepped off the runway the next day?  And what about the women who had perfectly perky breast before children but because they wanted to be a really good mommy and breastfeed, they were left with saggy tata’s?  Their poor husbands/boyfriends, although they try to be supportive, they miss the ones that stood up. Is that man lacking of character?  On the other hand, look at thirty-eight year old Saved by the Bell star Lark Voorhies, who disfigured her face in an attempt to reach society standards of beauty even though she was beautiful enough. What about her? Is she lacking character?

What I decided after that night was to wear that “thing” for three more weeks simply because I needed to make a statement and if not to anyone else, then to myself.  That statement was no matter how harsh society was to me, it would not dictate my state of being. I would remain in my character, regardless of the direction that society traveled. Even though we may alter our appearance, at the end of the day, we are still perfectly imperfect creatures and there will always be things that we may want to change and that is quite okay. What is more important is that we believe in ourselves even when no one else will because that’s the true definition of loving yourself fully and completely.

Be yourself and do what makes you happy.  Don’t let what the world says is beautiful; embrace the beauty that God created you with.  If we have a world full of superficial people, how will we teach our children to be authentic to love their imperfect selves?  We are only given  this one life so be yourself and do what makes you happy. Discover  your own definition of beauty!

Be bold, be brave and be EMPOWERED!

BGE Co-Founder

Brooklyn

If you know a little girl between the ages of 10-17 in or around the Nashville, TN area that could use some positive role models, contact us and tell us all about her.

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Be Better Not Bitter

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“I can’t believe this is happening to me.”   Have you ever had a WTF moment?  You know one of those “WHAT THE FRUIT!”…. What? What did you think I meant?  Anyways-just one of those moments when you’re looking around at your situation and you don’t know how you got there or the purpose of it all.  I have those often.  I know I’m not the only one that has WTF moments daily, shoot, sometimes several times a day.

My biggest WTF moment happened almost 11 years ago.  It was January 31, 2003.  I had just given birth to a beautiful baby boy.  He was two months early but we were prepared for his early arrival since it was predetermined that he would probably make his appearance before his due date.  My boyfriend and I were told earlier in my pregnancy that our baby suffered from a birth defect called, Gastroschisis.  In simple terms, his abdomen did not form properly in the early stages of fetal development and this caused his intestines to protrude from his belly.  We were told that this would require surgery as soon as he was born to have this corrected.  No big deal, “cosmetic.”  I don’t know how being born with your insides hanging out is “cosmetic” but, okay.

I went with what the doctors were telling us.  I prepared for his birth the best I could.  You see at the time, I was 22 years old.  My boyfriend and I (now my husband) were not on the best of terms.  We were young and playing house without any rules.  We did not know what the heck we were doing at the time.  We already had a 1-year-old baby boy that we were struggling to take care of.  I did not need another baby, right?  That was my thought when I found out I was expecting my second child.  “Oh no, how did this happen?”  A stupid question to ask ones self when I knew good and darn well how it had happened, I just did not want to accept the irresponsibility on my end.

 

In spite of my first feelings of despair and hopelessness, I decided to use my sons impending birth as motivation to get on my grind.  You see what I meant earlier when I said we were playing house was just that, we wanted to be grown but were living in my mamas house. So to me we were playing house because we wanted all of the privileges with none of the responsibilities.  Needless to say, it was not working out in our favor.  I was so down and out because the picture of what my life was did not reflect the picture I painted as a little girl.  I had big dreams of becoming the next Oprah honey.  You could not tell my little brown self that Oprah was not my long lost aunt.  I made my siblings and friends play, “Talk Show” with me all the time.  I just knew I was the next big thing popping.

So how did I end up as 22 year old, unwed mother with 1.5 babies, no job, and a bleak future? Decisions. Sitting on my mothers couch one day watching another episode of, “Maury I’m 1 million percent sure he my baby daddy,” A commercial came on. You know, one of those commercials where there is a girl that looks like you (not really but one you can relate to her story).  She talks about how she was a single mother and she got the bright idea one day to go back to college to take some quick training to get a better job and then everything was flowers blooming and birds chirping.  So I decided to call the school that was being advertised.  Two days later I was enrolled into a 10-month paralegal program with hopes of working in field of law.  Not my original plan but I figured I could sacrifice my dreams to feed my babies.  I was starting to feel like I had some direction.  I was making progress towards being a grown woman.

A week after that, I got a part-time job, flipping burgers for a nearby burger shack.  At this point I’m like, “Yea, I got this.”  I begin to attend school by day and work by night.  My belly is getting bigger and my outlook brighter.  My boyfriend and I begin to see a turn in our situation.  We were able to get our own apartment and we were no longer playing house, we were real adults, or so we thought.  My boyfriend had picked up a second job at a sandwich spot right across from my burger joint.   Things were looking up. We had family and friends give us baby items, we even had enough to make a small nursery area for the baby.  We had clothes, diapers, and milk.  We were ready.  Then things started to take a different turn.

I lost my job.  A few days later I begin to have premature labor pains, which I brushed off as Braxton Hicks (false labor pains).  But then they became more consistent and very aggressive.  When I arrived at the hospital on January 30, 2003, I was told that I was in labor.  They tried for a day to stop the labor but my son was ready for his debut.  They prepared me for delivery and gave me shots of steroids to try to strengthen his lungs before birth.  On January 31, 2003 my beautiful baby boy was born.  He had a head full of hair and very powerful lungs.  I delivered him via cesarean section to prevent any unnecessary stress on his birth defect.   I did not get to hold my son because he was whisked away to surgery as soon as they got him cleaned up.  I got a brief glimpse of him before they took him away.

A week later he was in NICU but he was doing great.  The surgery had not been as simple as they expected because the amount of intestines formed outside of the abdomen was more then they expected.  We were told on February 10th that he had only one more surgery to go to have the remaining portion of his intestines put in place in his abdomen and then we would be preparing our little man for his recovery and his release from the hospital.  On February 13th after fighting for two days, my beautiful angel made his way back to heaven to be with our God.

Now you may be asking yourself, why did she have to tell that long and sad story?  What’s the purpose?  You see for many years I wondered why did God take my son from me?  Why me?  I was bitter.  I would not step inside of a church and I was holding on to anger that I had no place for.  That anger and that bitterness were starting to eat my soul.  I was not happy with my life. I was not able to live up to my full potential as a mother or even as a woman.  Even though I have accomplished so many great things since I lost my son:  I married my boyfriend.  I graduated from the paralegal program and even went on to obtain a Bachelors and Masters degree.  I have been blessed with two additional birth children and one bonus son that I have the pleasure of parenting with my husband.  In spite of all of those great things, I was harboring ill feelings towards God.  I felt like he shortchanged me.  He took something from me.

It was not until I realized the purpose of that moment in my life that I was able to accept it and heal.   You see, that young girl that I was at that time, I was not capable of being the mom that I am now.  I was young and overwhelmed.  I did not appreciate the blessing of life that was given to me.  I was worried about what people would think when they saw me with two young kids.  I was worried about being a statistic.  What God did is he gave me something awesome and then he took it away so that I could appreciate all of his blessings in all forms.  And even though I was angry at his decision to take my son, I understand the lesson in the trial.  Because he did that, I was able to accept and appreciate the blessing of being able to give life to two additional beautiful baby boys.  I did not care what people would think of me.  I did not care about being judged because I was a young mom.  None of that mattered.  God took my bitterness and used it to make me better.  I am a better mom today because God took my son.

I said all of that to say this, don’t let your past make you bitter.  I don’t care what your backstory is.  Don’t let what you been through determine where you go in life.  Let go of the negative, let go of your bitterness and let your purpose shine through.  Don’t be bitter be better.

Be bold, be brave and be EMPOWERED.

BGE Co-founder

Kendra

 

If you know a little girl between the ages of 10-17 in or around the Nashville, TN area that could use some positive role models, contact us and tell us all about her.

 

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Reality Tv Is Not My Reality

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For the first time in a very long time, I was abruptly awakened out of my sleep.  It wasn’t from the array of light that greeted me through the cracks of my window shade like every other morning. No, not this morning, this morning I was awakened by a scary sense of sheer hopelessness. Hopelessness for a people, my people, who haven’t a single indication that the world around them is rapidly progressing and they are not even a part of it. Even as I’m writing this, I’m hesitant because I know that for many, these words will fall on deaf ears. Maybe only a few will even bother to read it and of those few only a handful will care. Today, I found myself tired… tired of always desperately advocating for a lost cause, for a lost generation of people who refuse to care about anything but  Gucci, Jay –Z , Beyonce’ and materialistic gain.  But as I started to lay down my pen, I was reminded of my daughter, your daughters, and for them, I will write until I can’t anymore.

To my beautiful black women…

My beautiful black women, we are at one of the most crucial moments in our history.  Right now, we have to decide whether or not our ancestry will continue into a great legacy or die.  As an advocate for the empowerment of  women’s rights  but especially those of African decent, I’ve considered so many different reasons why we are who we are as a people.   Is our  regression owed to hundreds of years of dehumanization from the repetitive degradation and cruelty that we inherited from our ancestors who inherited it as their birthright?  Was it the construction of ghettos, projects, and the liquor stores placed all around them?  I’ve argued that, maybe, it’s the lack of knowledge and opportunity that has been graciously silver spooned to the rest of society. Was it the  black man who had been the Achilles heel that wounded us internally?  Was it the fathers or lack thereof?  Or was it the  fault of the media for  only giving us  a few versions of ourselves.  Because,  on one hand, they give us the  Kobe Bryant’s, the Oprah‘s, and the Obama’s and on the other hand they give us the neck rolling, wine glass-throwing, finger-pointing, angry black woman whose only aspiration is to tear one another down.   While we, in the middle, are involuntarily forced on a side, but of course not the Obama’s side because we don’t have enough money to sit with them. Now, this is why they call us “angry “.  If that’s all the world is ever fed, then how is anybody supposed to know that another type of woman even exists.

So today, I beg the neck rollers, the twirler’s, and the weave throwers, to stop misrepresenting me. The media will have its field day without your help. It’s going to be hard, I know, because your struggle has been that real to you.  I understand the need to get yours by any means necessary.  I’ve witnessed that level of desperation for myself, however; today I’m asking you to strive for higher. I’m asking that you unselfishly watch over my daughter whom you have never met while I watch over yours. As our grandmothers always said, “It takes a village.”    It is time that we move forward.  It is time that we take responsibility for our actions even when we know the cause was no fault our own. This is the time where we must show our daughters that “ twerking” is not a sport and that we deserve the utmost respect and adoration. It is time to fight for something other than what she said that you said and that we said. It is time to stop fighting each other and start fighting for a positive, more productive image to show for our little ones.   It’s time that we all stand up and stand for something that we can be proud of.  It’s time that we all are bold, brave, and empowered.

“Be the change that you want to see in the world.” Ghandi

Be brave, be bold, be EMPOWERED!

~Sheritha Smith

If you know a little girl between the ages of 10-17 in or around the Nashville, TN area that could use some positive role models, contact us and tell us all about her.

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Coming Out Of The Fog To Greater

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Have you ever been in fog?  Have you ever been in a Fog?  Yes, they are two separate situations.  If you’ve been infog, this means you’ve literally been outside in foggy elements.  If you’ve been in a fog then this means you’ve been in situations where the outcome was unclear or you’ve been unclear about something be it a decision, life, career or anything you’ve been unclear about.

 

I’ve been in plenty foggy situations, literally and figuratively.  Most recently I’ve been in a figurative foggy state of mind.  I say this because I’ve been experiencing some hardships in life lately.  Don’t feel bad for me, stuff happens.  Life happens to everyone, if you’re not going through something in life, I’m afraid to tell you my dear but you have a case of dead.

 

It does not matter how rich you are or how beautiful you think you are, everybody experiences hardships in life at some point.  It is what it is.  You can ride the wave or let the wave ride you.  Just know that if you choose the latter, the outcome looks very bleak.

 

On the way to work one morning, it was literally foggy outside.  At first the dreary weather had a negative impact on my mood.  I was grumpy.  Here it is, 5:30 AM, I’m having to move around and get ready for my day when I could have been laying comfortably in my bed.  I was complaining about the weather, the bad drivers, even how stupid the “Strawberry Letter” was on the Steve Harvey Morning Show.  Ya’ll know what I’m talking about, it was one of those, “I’m great with a suckey mate,” days.  So anyway, I’m in rush hour traffic and all of a sudden the fog begins to clear and the sun begins to shine through the clouds.  The clearer the fog got, the better my attitude got.  Once I was completely out of the fog I had a revelation, “no matter how foggy your situation might seem, God has already cleared a path for you.”  I can do the Holy Ghost dance right now just thinking about what that means.  ß—-Insert dance here.

 

You see I was letting the foggy outlook dictate how my morning was going.  Instead of looking at it as a blessing, because it was, the fact that God woke me up to be able to see another foggy day was a blessing within itself.  Instead of reveling in that, I was letting what looked like a dreary day get me down.

 

How many of you have been in life situations and you felt like it was never going to get better?  I’ll wait… No takers, okay let me try again.  How many of you have ever been going through something and it looked like you were about to lose but right when you were about to give up, throw up your hands and give up the fight, God gave you the victory?  I know I struck a chord with that one.

 

You see what God showed me that day was that he is in total control.  If we would just trust him, he will show us the way through the Fog.  It might look dreary right now but the fog always goes away and the sun shines through the clouds.

 

Don’t let your foggy days out weigh your sunny days.  Be thankful for whatever trials and tribulations you might be going through or your may to go through in the future.  It lets you know two things:

 

  • You’re alive!  Thank God for this right?  The alternative sucks.
  • God is preparing you for GREATER.

 

Did you catch that? The thicker your fog, the GREATER your victory.  Think about it, all of those really bad things that you’ve been through in your past: abuse, neglect, poverty, addiction or whatever the struggle has been, prepared you to be the person you are today reading this post.

 

If you are going though the fog right now, stop right where you are and give God praise because, baby, you’re headed for GREATER.

 

Don’t forget to reach back and help somebody else up once you get there.  You’re only as great as the last person you helped along the way.

 

Be bold, be brave, and take your life into your hands. Be EMPOWERED!

BGE Co-Founder

Kendra Garcia

 

 

Do you know a  girl between the age of 10-17 in the Nashville, TN area who could use some help coming out of a foggy situation? Does she need to be  empowered?  Tell us all about her. She may benefit from our BGE mentorship program.  

 

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Black Girls Empowered!

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Uplifting and empowering girls into queens

This old man once told me that the only solution for our youth was “total destruction.” His belief was that our inner-city youth were so far broken, that the only way to reverse the effects of their “ignorance” was to blow the world up so that they can have an opportunity to start all over again. He felt that slavery had been so detrimental to the growth and progression of Blacks and that this would be the only way to start everyone off on an equal playing field.  

After many years of pondering that one statement, I finally understand what that old man meant and the desire that he had to see change in our youth. I believe, however, that there is a different solution to the problem that is now our future generation.  I believe that the power to make change lies within in knowledge, which creates self – awareness and self-esteem. I believe that feeling knowledgeable means feeling comfortable having a voice. We at BGE believe that when there is power behind what you say, you will feel important enough to speak out loud.   You have an heir about you and you hold your head up and stick your chest out.

Black Girls Empowered is a non-profit organization, designed to enlighten the minds of inner-city girls by giving them the knowledge, skills and cultural experiences they need to get to the next level in their lives. 

Statistics show that the majority of minority women hate themselves with the highest percentage being African American women. Self-hatred is the biggest reason so many women go down unconventional paths such as: video girls, strippers, urban model and other self-degrading paths.  These women are seeking attention and looking to fill a void that came from bits and pieces of every where. Most of the time, these are women who came from broken homes and from poor families.  They didn’t have the privilege of learning the basics of self-esteem.  They were not given the keys to a family business or even the keys to a college dorm.  They had to make it through life on the lessons they learned on their own.   Having little exposure to the knowledge, skills, and tools needed to be successful, they are lost in a world that will eat them up and spit them out, not thinking twice about where you end up.

Where did this all start? We believe that these may be traits that have been handed down from generation to generation.  Studies show that the first lessons you learn as a child start at home.  If your home life is bad your chances of overcoming your circumstances are lowered by 50%.  The other way young women measure their self-worth is based off of what they see.  If you don’t have any positive/successful female role models in your life and the only thing you see portrayed in the media are seemingly beautiful flawless women showing their bodies and doing unfathomable things, your views can become skewed. 

We at Black Girls Empowered believe that we can change those skewed views and turn them around.  We believe that knowing better is doing better and we want to show our young inner-city girls that they have a chance to be great and to be queens.  We believe in leading by example.  Children do what they see not what you say.  So if they see you doing things that are not positive or conducive for personal growth, they will mimic those behaviors whether you tell them to or not. 

Our goal is to show them that they are wonderful, beautiful and valued.  We want to show them that they can overcome their circumstances no matter what they see themselves as being right now.   The number of obstacles you overcome on the way up determines the measure of how great you can be. 

At Black Girls Empowered, we want to give our young women the tools of understanding themselves as women and also understanding their futures and how successful they can possibly be. 

We plan to do this in a series of lessons and experiences that span from life lessons to cultural lessons.  We plan to teach seminars on life and finances.  We plan to take a look back and journey through black history.  We plan to infuse cultural experiences of learning other languages, eating foods from different cultures and other experiences outside of what they may be accustomed to.  We at BGE plan to show them the world and how big it is and also how powerful they can be as women.  We will do this by introducing them to other minority women who may have faced some of the same challenges as them but overcame them and are now successful women.  We want them to know that they are more than their bodies.  They have beautiful minds and souls. 

Our mission at BGE is to enlighten the minds of young woman by showing them that they are valued, worthy and they empowered. 

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