Many of you may have already seen this video, but "A Girl Like Me", by Kiri Davis, is a short documentary filmed in 2005 about beauty standards and biases amongst African American females.

I remember seeing this video years ago (and luckily I bookmarked it)... I felt so sad watching the young children in the experiment exhibiting the same results as a similar experiment performed decades ago--the Kenneth and Mamie Clark's study of color preferences among young black children.  I remember feeling like we had not come a long way at all.   When I see young girls, I go out of my way to tell them how adorable they are or how pretty their hair looks.  In doing so, I have always been blessed with a smile, and sometimes a blush, from them.  I, too, am careful how I present myself to them.  You'll never catch me spouting negative words or phrases such as "I wish I was skinnier..." because they scream "low self esteem" and indirectly would teach them to be just as self conscious.  And when it comes to my naturally coily hair, I wear it proudly so they see that there are "girls" who are "older than them" who have hair that looks like theirs.  They see me in my business attire and some in my workplace setting so they know they never have to limit themselves with how they look or wear their hair when they grow up and enter the professional world.

In this season of giving thanks, we must remind ourselves to never forget how beautiful we are!  Self love will always be deeper than what your hair looks like or what shade your skin color is.  Think about giving the youngster(s) in your life a gift that will empower them and make them feel worthy.  If you don't have self love, nothing you do to yourself will ever be good enough.

• My original video reference
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