Sunday, just as I was all set to turn in early and get a nice long night of beauty sleep, I turned to the OWN network and was really excited and proud to see an announcement of two shows dedicated to the topic of black women and beauty. Welp! There went my plans! I grabbed a bag of chips (not good! lol) and settled in to watch Oprah’s Next Chapter and the premier of Dark Girls.  Oprah’s Next Chapter aired first and featured four leading African American women discussing their career journeys in Hollywood. Of course I was especially excited to see my favorite, Viola Davis, looking beautiful with short cropped natural hair. I learned so much during this one hour conversation; it seemed to fly by. I am always hopeful that, in this day and age, we as a race are progressing in the entertainment industry. However, I was reminded that we still have a long way to go when Viola Davis spoke about how there are so few roles for African American women while for Caucasians actresses, the roles are plentiful and ever-expanding.  This made me really sad to hear. Surprisingly the conversation also talked hair, light skin vs. dark skin and even weight/size and how this all affects having a successful career in Hollywood.

Immediately following Oprah’s Next Chapter, the premier of Dark Girls came on. I love documentaries so I was even more excited and a bit nervous to watch this. I didn’t know how much of our dirty laundry would be exposed. There is so much I want to say about Dark Girls; I almost feel like I could start a whole new blog series on this topic. I will start off with saying I recommend every black girl watch this riveting documentary. I have three daughters and so the subject really hit close to home. My four year old and eight year old have both asked me questions about hair texture and skin color. It would seem that as soon as our little girls are able to understand the world around them, they quickly begin to question if they are “good enough” or “pretty enough” due to media images they see.  I thought the documentary did a very good job of telling the stories of “dark girls.” I only wish there would have been more solutions offered. Check out some highly introspective quotes from Dark Girls:

“I understand to really face colorism issues we must really understand our history and not in a roots watered-down kinda way but a Sankofa way.”

“Rappers always speak about having so much black pride, but in music videos there is always a promotion of light skinned, long haired girls, especially as the main love interest. This is conflicting and hyprocritical.”

“We as black women must not become victims and embrace thinking of light being better than dark skin. We must teach our daughters they are beautiful no mater what color their skin is.”

Did you see Dark Girls?  If so, what did you think about the documentary?