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I& #39;m not even going to pretend to understand what is going on around Doja Cat, but I will say this: Anti-blackness and misogynoir are so prevalent that it& #39;s important for parents to intervene with their kids as early as possible to insure their self-esteem isn& #39;t destroyed.
I can remember as a kid I loved to color and draw and my mother would buy me these Barbie brand coloring books. And because Barbie was white on the cover, I colored all the Barbies on the inside white. Because I thought that& #39;s what I was supposed to do.
My father noticed this and rather than get upset or make a scene or yell at me, he did something really ingenious. He asked if he could color with me.
I was so happy my daddy wanted to color with me, I of course obliged.
My father then took the brown and black crayons and colored in his Barbie as black and showed it to me. "Isn& #39;t she pretty?" he asked.
And my eyes got big and it clicked. I didn& #39;t have to automatically color Barbie white. I could make her any color I wanted. I could make her look like me.
I told my father that I agreed that his Barbie, who was black, was beautiful. And from then on I colored all my people black in coloring books or when I made drawings.
I can& #39;t say enough what it meant to me for my father, a black man who I thought hung the moon as a child, to tell me I was beautiful and being black was beautiful.
It& #39;s stayed with me all my life and to this day I carry myself with confidence because of it. I want all little black girls to get the same validation, especially from their fathers.
Both my parents fought hard to make sure we all had a strong sense of identity. Every Christmas time my mom would make my father search for black dolls for me and my sisters.
So, again, don& #39;t really know what& #39;s going on with Doja...at all, but all the convo seems to be around self-hate, which depressingly does happen a lot. And that often starts at home.
And you can& #39;t under-estimate the effect parents have in shaping a child& #39;s identity and self-esteem. It& #39;s more powerful than TV and magazines in the end.
I know in my case, no seductive facet of "mainstream" culture was stronger than my father& #39;s love for me.
