Rock the Vote

A few months ago, I posted a powerful short film directed by seventeen-year-old named, Kiri Davis. She's received widespread critical acclaim for "A Girl Like Me", her gut-wrenching exploration of how race impacts our perception of beauty. Now, she's up for a $10,000 CosmoGirl Film Contest Award! Anyone who's seen the short knows that this young lady doesn't play, so let's spread the word and hook a sister up.

To watch "A Girl Like Me", click here. To vote for it, click here.

A Whole New World

“That’s it Mommy, I want that one!” My three-year-old flung her arm towards a wall of shiny, sherbet-colored princess costumes.

“I thought you wanted to be a duck.”

“I changed my mind. I wanna be Cinderella for Halloween. See it, Mommy? Right there!”

I tried not to notice the crinkly, powder blue costume creeping slowly into my peripheral vision. “Um, how about a ladybug?”

“No, Mommy. Cinderella!”

Of course that’s who she wanted to be for Halloween. After all, the blue-eyed, bouffant-wearing princess was the it-girl of Four-year-old World. I knew that J-Jo was more interested in playing dress-up and looking "pretty" than actually looking white, but I still had my reservations about endorsing it. I was never that crazy about the Disney Cinderella with all of her whining and pining for Mr. Right; I’m not raising my daughters to wait for some guy on a white horse to gallop in and whisk them off to Wisteria Lane. I want my girls to aspire to become much more than daydreaming debutantes in ball gowns. The last thing I need is some cartoon character contradicting me.

And then there was that other part. As an African American mom, I resented the fact that for so many years, Disney had never bothered to create a black princess.

American Indians had Pocahontas and Asian Americans had Mulan (both sort of underrated, but at least they were there). And of course there’s Jasmine, who always seemed like she’d only been created to keep other minorities from getting mad. Clearly somebody at the mega-corporation knew that white people weren’t the only ones with Orlando timeshares, or they wouldn’t have created the few princesses of color they had. So where the heck was Princess Imani? Black families like Epcot, too. I wanted a princess I could, I mean, my girls could relate to. Several more seasoned moms had mentioned that the princess fetish is just a phase, but if I was destined to spend the next six years or so getting dragged into the princess aisle at Target (or even worse, the Disney Store) I needed more incentive to be there.

No one could convince me that plunking $19.99 on the counter for that costume would be anything more than a deposit on my daughter's future therapy sessions. I couldn’t stomach the thought of letting my beige-skinned daughter dress up as the archetypical porcelain-skinned princess for Halloween. At the same time, I wasn’t ready to tell J-Jo why she couldn’t make her own decision about what to be for Halloween. So I stood there for a few minutes, staring at the wall of flammable frocks. And then I caved. There’d be plenty of time to talk about the difference between real love and fairy tale romance later, right? And we could discuss race forever, considering we’ll be black all of our lives. But at that time she was three years old. She’d only be three once.

So much of parenting is about picking battles; this time I'd chosen to surrender. I gingerly placed the costume in my red cart and wheeled it towards the check out line. J-Jo just sat there beaming at me; her smile could have upstaged the sun. When Halloween rolled around, I removed the cheesy, plastic cameo (with Cinderella’s face on it just in case it wasn’t obvious) from the front and sent J-Jo off with daddy in search of strangers with candy. I tried to focus on the joy on her face when we bought that costume, instead of my resentment at the company that inspired it. Then I sat on there the couch nursing our two-month-old twins, fantasizing about a day when little girls like my own would know a princess character who wasn’t based on a Eurocentric beauty standard.

And then she arrived, Disney's very first animated BAP.

The ninth member of the $3 Billion Princess A-List is Maddy, heroine of “The Frog Princess”. The 2-D animated film is an original story set in 1920’s New Orleans. In 2009, Princess Maddy will join the likes of Jasmine, Mulan and, yes, Cinderella. She’ll be given the royal treatment, with her very own rides at Disney World and dress up clothes to match. Rumor has it that Alicia Keys, Dreamgirls’ costars Jennifer Hudson and Anika Noni Rose are all vying for the lead role. Keys reportedly called the producers and begged for the part herself (sources say she’s received a second audition). One might scoff at the persistence of these starlets, fighting over a part like it was a sale rack at Filene’s Basement. True, the role itself is little more than a glamorized voice-over, but to anyone who grew up too black to be Snow White, the prospect of a black Disney Princess speaks volumes.

Disney has dubbed “The Frog Princess” “An American Fairy Tale”, so hopefully girls of all ethnicities will be able to identify with its heroine…at least for a little while. As I write this, J-Jo’s Cinderella Halloween costume is crumpled in ball at the bottom of her closet; the princess phase has run its course. Yet I know that Cinderella won’t be the last Disney diva to join us at the dinner table. In no time, J-Jo’s baby sister Coco will want princess get-ups of her own. And princess sippy cups, princess pajamas and whatever else that dreaded Disney store has in stock. Not that I’ll always buy into it. I’m just thrilled that by the time she asks, there’ll be another choice: An African American Disney Princess, with her very own happily ever after.

Imagine that.

Getting Happy

I was thrilled to find out that Will Smith's story of an African American father who beat the system , found personal success and financial security for himself and his young son was number one at the box office it's opening weekend (grossing 27 million). No, that's not the Smart Guy on the movie poster with Will, it's his baby boy Jaden, looking all grown as he makes his big screen debut with his daddy. As if this movie wasn't enough of a tear jerker already.

Just the fact that a drama starring black characters that aren't cooning it up or shooting eachother up could make it to number one is enough to have me bringing the Kleenex to the multiplex. I'm so tired of the maudlin Soul Food wannabees and the buffoonish Soul Plane regurgitations make me hurl. And then we've got the stereotypical gangsta violent flicks that played themselves out more than a decade ago. Everybody knows that's not what black people are all about anyway (or at least I hope so...) Give me a "feel-good" movie starring some black people any day. And no, nothing by Cuba Gooding Jr. will ever count.

We couldn't find a sitter on Saturday night, but were fortunate to catch the incredibly charismatic, real life inspiration for the film, Christopher Gardner, being interviewed on the Wall Street Journal Report. In addition to Gardner's personal account of how he made it, I was struck by hearing his story about how he sold shares to a racist Texan who repeatedly called him nigger over the phone before buying options from him. And that his biggest problem is not being able to sleep at night because his "face hurts so much from smiling all day."

To be perfectly honest, the first question to cross my mind was "Did this brother make it without selling out?" Kinda hard to know without seeing the film. But just on speculation, I'm not sure how much it matters – Gardner obviously had the last laugh. In a previous life, I knew many a college educated brother who were perfectly content to live off mommy and daddy because they "didn't want to work for The Man." Where are they now? Not exactly uplifting the race. Last time I checked they were still unemployed, living in their parents' basements, spending entire days playing video games and smoking weed (sorry, but you know who you are).

Most black professionals, present company included at one point in time, have had to wear Paul Lawrence Dunbar's proverbial mask at some point. It's no secret that assimilating into corporate America isn't easy when you're black, whether you're holding a JD-MBA or – in Christopher Gardner's case – an eviction notice. I can't help but wonder if complete and utter desperation, as in this particular case, makes sporting that bad boy just a little more bearable.