All language subtitles for Invisible.Portraits.2020.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

[Oprah] And now,
an OWN SPOTLIGHT.

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[melancholy music playing]

[woman] Mother.

The stars fill my mouth
while I speak to the universe

on a tight rope
between life and death,

negotiating the promise
of an unbreakable heart.

She molds the pieces
of the last one,

into a birth canal
paved with gold.

While the night plays
its finale,

the ocean opens its arms
and pace is my breath.

I push, so the pull of waves

crashing already in celebration

of the newest extension
of heaven.

[melancholy music continues]

Pushing the form
of black women astronauts,

healers and architects.

Living to a soundtrack
of little black girls

feeling the opera house
with strings

and when pushing the choir
of queen singing,

we have overcome pushing
a theater

at ballerina's next door
with Afros out rocking

so wade in the water,
pushing the applause

for the leading actress
shining like a new moon.

Under the spotlight
was she plants seeds falling

from the hands of a playwright
kin to her.

I push from the shoulders

of giants ancestors
that left gifts.

They receive no honors
for by the river

to run through
their daughter's forever.

I push on the lie
that I am not infinite.

But this warm has not given
the world's renaissance

after Renaissance, when
the world's given me sorrow

after ghetto, after brick wall.

I scaled it with
the entire nation

tied around my waist,
screaming 'go faster' for you.

My beautiful black daughters,
I push.

[woman] Video one, take one.

[Dr. Joy] My occupation is
kind of hard to put my finger on.

My occupation has been about
healing for a long time, um,

and I think my existence
as a black woman

is directly tied into
my purpose.

I think that from the time
I was a little girl,

even though I couldn't
put my finger on it,

it was a wound that I couldn't
quite figure out what it was.

I knew it was there, but
I couldn't articulate it

in a way that made sense,
even for me.

But I knew it was a deep wound.

[melancholy music playing]

I knew it was a heart wound.

It was a soul wound.

[Sheila Thomas] We've been hurt.

We've been abused and used
and thrown out decades

of just not mattering to anyone.

That makes you...
It makes you very angry.

Makes you upset.

A lot of us are angry because

of the things that happen
in our lives.

The things that we go through,

the way we treat it.
We have cause to be angry.

The misuse in abuse
of the black woman's body.

It goes way back,
goes back hundreds of years.

[thunder rumbling]

[melancholy music continues]

[woman] In your book,
'Fighting Words',

you state,
'Publicly articulating rage'

typically constitutes less
a revelation about oppression,

than a discovery of voice.

Ooh.

Well, I'm happy to hear
I said that.

[laughing]

Because I actually said that
quite some time ago,

and I haven't thought
about this in a while.

So this is quite interesting.

Having said that...

[sighs wearily]

The terminology now I think,

would be speaking your own truth

by claiming your own truth

and claiming all parts of
yourself, including the rage,

claiming the full range of voice

is claiming
the full range of self.

We also have joy, right?

We also have sorrow.

We also have pride.

We also have laughter, right?

And so I think we have
a right to our anger,

and I think that we should
hold on to that right to be angry.

Why would we reject anger when
there's so much to be angry about,

that affect us,
that affect our children,

that affect our communities,
that affect our loved ones?

Why would we want to tamp
that down to become a good girl?

If I do begin to assert myself,

if I begin to stand
in my own truth,

"Oh, she's aggressive,
she's angry, she's violent."

Out of control.

That's all you are,
is an angry black woman.

I mean, there's angry white
women as angry Spanish women.

I mean, there's angry women. You know,
why does it have to be the black woman?

"Angry black woman."

We don't have dibs on it.

When you were labeled
that, "angry black woman,"

was that one of the things
that knocked you back...

That was one of those things
that you just sort of think,

"Dang, you don't even know me."

Yeah.

It flies in the face
of the reality of who we are.

It is taken such a level

of indomitable strength
and courage

to bear the burden of
consistently being,

uh, I guess, portrayed as
someone less than human.

♪ Lord, got to get out ♪

[man] The new Mammy holder
dispenses paper towels

with a touch of
Southern hospitality.

[man 2]
The tax free cash income alone

has been running
$150,000 a year.

Society's views toward
black women

are framed through
these particular images.

The Mammy...

the Jezebel...

the welfare queen,
that was relatively new.

But it's the whole notion of
punishing black women for, um,

not being abused,

for saying, "We are entitled
to the benefits"

"that other people get
in this country."

When Social Security started
in this country,

black women where one group
that were excluded.

So when black women
began to claim

and say, "No,
we should be included,"

they became denigrated
as welfare queens.

[speaks indistinctly]

[Dr. Hill-Collins] The Jezebel
is the sexualized black woman.

This is the woman who again
is supposed to be available

to everyone to serve them,
but to serve them differently,

to serve them sexually,

and to then be punished
for that.

She's there to be used and
to make people comfortable.

What have we got for supper?

You stay here. I'm just gonna
get a hot supper.

And then the last one
is the, what?

The Mammy, yeah.

The Mammy is the mother
for the white family.

That is the all nurturing
black woman

who does everything for
everybody else, and loves to do it.

She is the fantasy
of white America.

When we think about
those kind of archetypes

that have been imposed
on black women,

archetype of the Mammy,
of the Sapphire,

of the Jezebel,
of the welfare queen,

those are meant
to dehumanize us.

You call us welfare queens?

You call us lazy,

you call us bad mothers.

No one else gets those titles.

Why is that?

But if you had that
image of Aunt Jemima,

you, um... you were accepted.

And I think that for decades,

all we wanted was to be accepted

and visible
instead of invisible.

So often I ask my audiences,
I said,

"How many of you
have ever met a Black person

that isn't Black?"

The Black person that
will try to be anything...

All of a sudden,
anything that I can tell you,

that will convince you
that I'm not Black.

Well, I have
another word for it...

It's called
post traumatic slave syndrome.

As a mother of two Black men...

the thing that I'm most
afraid of

is that I'm going to get a call

saying that someone
killed my sons.

That terrorizes me.

Mornings around here
aren't just hectic...

Oh! They're insane. [laughs]

And that's why I love these.

[woman]
Aunt Jemima frozen pancakes.

They're the perfect solution
to busy weekday mornings.

♪ Aunt Jemima
Now you're cooking ♪

[man] Hey, these are terrific.
What's the secret?

Oh, it's an old family secret
handed down

from generation to generation...
- [laughter]

...from father to son.

- By Aunt Jemima.
- The Secret is out.

I mean, I have yet to meet
a black woman

who loved being a Mammy.

[woman] Did your mother work?

Yes, she did, uh, housework.

That was her way of income,

working and cleaning house

for, uh, the white people
back there.

Washing and ironing.

And, um, that was her way
of her income

and making a living,

because at the time,

that was all that
the black woman knew to do...

at that time.

Do housework, cook...

wash, iron...

They were influenced, too.
Be the Mammy they knew.

Labels, stereotypes
like Mammy, um,

are what my colleague
Patricia Hill-Collins

calls controlling images.

They boxes that try to contain
and control us.

And one of the things that I find
most important about these stereotypes

and these controlling images is,
even when we're trying to defy them

and not fall into them,
they're controlling us.

The process of making oneself
invisible or playing small, right?

Trying not to draw negative
attention to ourselves

also means that we're not drawing
positive attention to ourselves.

We're not able to
fulfill our potential.

So often I ask my audiences, I said,
"How many Black people in my audience,"

I asked them, "How many of you have
ever met a Black person that isn't Black?"

The Black person that
will try to be anything...

"Oh, did I mention how much
Native American I have in me?"

"Oh, and I understand based on my DNA
now, that my people come from Switzerland."

All of a sudden,
anything that I can tell you,

that will convince you
that I'm not Black, right,

and everybody Black knows that.
Well, I have another word for it...

It's called
post traumatic slave syndrome.

Post traumatic slave syndrome
is exactly what it sounds like.

It's multigenerational trauma,
intergenerational trauma,

as it relates to people
of African descent.

Being separated from your
your native land,

being beaten, being sold,
being raped,

being experimented on,
any number of things.

As an enslaved African woman,

you um... you had no rights to your own
body, no rights at all to your own body.

And it didn't start
when you were a woman.

You know, that's the other kind of
mythology when we talk about rapes,

were thinking about women.

You think they waited
until they were eighteen?

You think few girls got to teenage
years without having been raped.

To imagine being a mother...

Someone just comes in the middle of
night says, you know we have some visitors.

They like the young ones.

So we going to pass her
along, to the visitors that night.

See you can't wrap your
head around that.

And we want to
really believe that,

well that just happened
a couple of times,

well according to a
mid eighteen hundred census

or over six hundred thousand
mixed race babies born.

That's a lot of
sneaking out back.

The more disturbing pieces are
the fact that you have the institution

of the church that was complicit,
that with slavery was complicit with

beyond that, I mean, you look at the
Reverend John Newton for example.

This was a man who
spent many, many years

on slave ships,
raping little girls and women.

This is his own accounts, he said
that I sinned with the high hand,

and he at the same time,
said that Black people

were not destined for the next
world, because we didn't have souls.

[singing "Amazing Grace"]

This was the same person
who penned Amazing Grace.

♪ The ♪

♪ The sound ♪

♪ that saved ♪

And it took him a long time to
arrive at "Amazing Grace."

But that was because he
knew what he done.

He knew later on,
as he was approaching death.

That he would be held
accountable for that.

I don't think anyone sings "Amazing
Grace" more than Black people.

Somebody singing it this
Sunday, I'm sure, "Amazing Grace."

But have no idea that the
wretch was him and not them.

So now they're calling themselves the
wretch when he, in fact, was the wretch.

It is so difficult to talk
about the misuse and abuse

of Black women's bodies
by so many different people,

on so many different levels.

If slavery is being exposed
to images that tell you

you are the mule of the world
or you are a Jezebel

or you are a prostitute or a bitch
or a ho, then slavery is not over.

So there was an
attempt by, um...

this structure from the
beginning to take women's bodies,

Black women's bodies,
and make them not our own.

[Dr. Joy Degrui]
This one particular physician,

um, J. Marion Sims.

J. Marion Sims was a physician
in the mid eighteen hundreds.

Consider the father of
modern gynecology,

because he developed the speculum,
which is used for every woman today.

So much goes through
my head when I think about

what these men would do
that would bring...

He had a makeshift hospital in his
backyard in mid eighteen hundreds.

So in his makeshift hospital,
and all of these slave owners

would bring these enslaved
girls and women and say fix them.

And he'd go, well
what's wrong with them?

They would they would be women
who were suffering

from something called
Obstetric fistula.

Which is a breakdown
of tissue in the vaginal wall,

usually occurs during childbirth,
where you actually tear all the way

through the bladder, through
the rectum, and it causes,

this... gaps which causes
leakage of urine and feces.

And he'd said, "We'll fix them
because they're not fit for duty."

Well, obstetric fistula's

pretty horrible thing to have,
but it will heal.

You still have leakage, which
is horrible and uncomfortable,

but it doesn't preclude your
ability, to say, working the fields.

Doesn't preclude your ability to
clean, feed animals, what have you.

So what duty, then,

were they not fit for?

And that duty was they needed to be
sexually accessible to the slave owner.

So he said,
fix her J. Marion Sims,

so she could be fit for duty.

And that duty, didn't matter that she
was twelve or ten, she's not fit for duty.

Mississippi appendectomy
is a is a phrase

that describes the
forced sterilization

of Black women, mainly
but not only, in the South.

And the reason why
the phrase is so powerful

is because it's naming a
practice of deceiving Black women.

Because often people were admitted
to the hospital and told, for example,

they had to get their
appendix removed,

and really they were given a
hysterectomy or tubal ligation.

This is a culture that wants us to
talk about the political and the cultural.

Um, much more than talking about
the foundation of it all is exploitation.

So the economic dimension
is the exploitation

of Black women's labor
and Black women's bodies.

It's that fundamental.

[Cora Mathews]
At the age of fourteen,

I was in a little town out of Pine
Bluff called Old Timers, Arkansas.

I began on a plantation.

There was a job,
there was earning money.

It wasn't very much.

But, I was happy that
at the end of the week

I had money, and
I could go shopping.

And I remember,
my first week of working.

I bought myself,
a beautiful yellow dress,

and, uh, a pair of shoes.

And I think at the end of the
week, I had about 18 dollars.

That was the way,
I was taught at that time,

to, uh, earn money, for myself.

We had overseers, we had
water boys to bring cold water.

Some of them were White and then
there we had some that were Black.

At times, I hated it.

I wasn't very good at it.

My uncle tried to teach me
because he would always

have me beside him on a row.

I wanted to fill my bag, but you
have to shake it down to make it heavy

so you have a nice weight when
you're going to have it weighed.

And every time I would fill my
bag, he would shake it down.

And that was discouraging
because I wanted a full bag like his.

And once you fill it up, then
they pay you by the pound.

It was like 50 cents a pound, so you
really had to pick hard to make any money.

My husband promised
to get me out of there.

And he did.

Once I got engaged,
then I didn't go any more.

My biggest fear is that
the police

stop one of my sons
and something happens to them,

they get shot or
get beat up, or anything...

Anything would have happened
to them.

Slavery did not end.

If that is a question of not being able
to make decisions about your own life,

if slavery is a situation
of economic disadvantage

and not being able to get out of
it from one generation to the next,

if slavery is being exposed
to images that tell you

you are the mule of the world
or you are a Jezebel

or you are a prostitute or a bitch
or a ho, then slavery is not over.

There's this kind of mythology
around slavery

that slavery officially ended,
and at that point somehow

the playing field got leveled.

But what I would submit to you is
that, you know, you had Jim Crow,

all the lynchings that occurred,

thousands and thousands of
lynchings occurred post-slavery,

not during In fact, if
you were to look at right now,

look at the majority of lynchings that
have gone on and those thousands

of lynchings that have occurred
all over the United States,

there's this delusional
paranoia that people of color,

and principally Black men
would do to White women

what White men did to Black women.
And the average Black man knew to run.

Don't even make eye contact
with a White woman, which could

cause, you know, cause your
death. Wrote a note to a White woman,

failed to run an errand for a White
woman, startled a White woman,

All of those would lead to lynching, not
just of Black men, but of the entire family.

[woman] I hear you have a
problem with these gentlemen

having a barbecue here at
the lake. What's going on?

- Now she don't want to talk.
- [woman] She doesn't want to talk now.

It's illegal to have a
charcoal grill in the park here.

- [woman] No, it's not, actually.
- Yeah, it is.

I just looked at the map that says
this is a designated barbecue area.

[woman] This woman don't want
to let a little girl sell some water.

- Illegally selling water without a permit, yeah.
- [woman] On my property.

No, I want
the cops here right now.

[children crying]

- Mommy.
- I'm gonna stay right here. I'm gonna stay right here.

[woman] The cops
are right down the block.

So what I've been thinking
about a lot lately,

and I'm a mother
and I'm a godmother.

Something that I feel almost is

a transgenerational memory,

the idea that I don't have the
power, really, to protect my children.

My biggest fear is that
the police

stop one of my sons
and something happens to them,

they get shot or
get beat up, or anything...

Anything would have happened
to them.

As a mother of two Black men,

The thing that I'm most afraid
of is that I'm going to get a call

saying that someone
killed my sons.

That terrorizes me.

[man] All right. I've asked
Helen Jones to join us.

Okay, Helen, go ahead.

Okay. This is my son,
John Horton

that was accused
of hanging hisself

in the Men's County Jail
last month

on the 30th. They came
to my daughter's residence

to tell me my son hung hisself.

But they didn't say that my son

have scars in his head.

He have, uh, meat showing
to where... a handcuff

was on his wrist to where
it's ate down to the meat.

They didn't mention
none of that, you know?

And then the bruise that's
on my son's head,

you can see it clear as day

where he been hit with
a billy club or a flashlight.

The line's right here.

You could see it clear as day.

I can, I can show you proof.

These lines right here is right
on my baby's head right here.

And I'm just trying
to figure out,

how did my son hang hisself

after taking a blow
like this to his head,

without receiving medical
attention from anybody.

'Cause I know he didn't get
no medical attention.

This is the noose
that came with my baby's body.

This is what was
around his neck.

And this is not the print
that's around my baby neck.

My baby have a mark
around his neck this thin.

So how would, how can he
hang hisself with this?

This came to me and my family,
and I'm just trying to,

how did this get out of evidence
and out of custody...

I have one daughter today.

She's 32, and I have a son

that, you know, that's deceased.

I knew they was doing something to
John because they wouldn't let me see him.

And I tried to visit him
numerous times

and they hid him from me and

kept lying to me, telling me he
was over here, he was over there.

So if anything, I just
want John to know that

I wish I could have saved him. I
wish I could have helped my son.

That's it.

There's no way I could
get over that.

I would use my dying breath
to get justice for him.

So the question is,
how to protect oneself.

And how do you raise a child
in a culture that hates your child?

How do you raise your child
in a culture

that will kill your child and
not even think twice about it?

The police state is existing
exactly

as it was designed to exist,

and it makes me very angry.

It makes me angry that
Black mothers are gunned down,

people like Wakisha Wilson, or
Kisha Michael or, Michelle Shirley.

Way, stand in the rifle sight.

We raise our children
in the rifle sight.

[man] The most disrespected
person in America is the Black woman.

The most unprotected person
in America is the Black woman.

The most neglected person
in America is the Black woman.

Faith is not only believing in
something that you can't see and touch,

but it's really expressing
your true potential,

We were meant to survive
as units of labor.

We were meant to survive
as commodities

that other people can use
for other purposes.

But we were never meant
to survive

as fully human beings
that are seen as fully human.

If I tell you this secret,
do you promise to keep it?

My armor is only flesh,

more human than you could
ever imagine.

Feet swollen somewhere between
systemic diabetes and years of marching

from the house to the
river, across the fields,

through the underground,
for women's suffrage,

for civil rights, for Bring Our
Kids Home, for gay marriage,

for Black Lives Matter,
for Say Her Name.

I'd be lying if I said
the blood of my children

and pimped across phone screens
didn't make me regret opening my eyes.

Most mornings it's hard
to remember a time

when death was beautiful
and old age was regular.

I don't remember a day
since puberty

when the generational trauma
of being held captive

didn't blow its foul breath
in my face.

With the passing of cop cars, I
see my voiceless sister in the trunk,

bullets destined to rip
through my brother, a driver.

It's having six o'clock beers with
correction officers who mocked my father,

reaching through the bars of his
cage, begging for one more phone call.

It's a mama who needs 15
minutes of his voice like aspirin

at the end of her third
double this week.

It's the intuition that
makes your toes go numb,

the vision that glazes your face until
strangers ask, what you looking so mean for?

I'd be lying if I said
it doesn't hurt.

To watch him choose
my gentrified beauty.

An another while in my off-brand
accent, they say, she just mad.

Like after several
thousand years of dying for

and beside my counterpart,
I wouldn't be

and I shouldn't be,
because I did it out of love.

He owes me nothing, but damn.

Sometimes I wonder if so
many lives hadn't been so cruel.

Would he still be mine?

I wonder if his soul
recognizes humiliation

of a beaten and raped wife
for the master who stole his life?

When he looks at me, I wonder

if his spirit has PTSD.

I wonder if I can cure it.

Would you believe me
if I told you

sometimes I go into the shower
and just below the volume

of the radio, I tilt my head
back and cry my heart out?

Heavy are the eyelids that wake after
a thousand nights of morning herself.

There's no way
around feeling it.

That's how you get through it.

And sometimes, the only safe
place for that is in my dreams.

Sometimes I go to sleep
just to lay my head

in the lap of Sojourner
and be a woman again.

I am tired of announcing
my strength with heartbreak.

And it ain't fair
to be this tired.

We're still here
and we haven't gone away.

And we are not victims,
and we're not damaged.

We have painful wounds from which some of
us have healed and others of us have not.

But that doesn't make us damaged
goods in any way, shape or form.

It makes us leaders, actually.

I think the label resilient,
like most labels,

the effect of that, in part, is
tied to who is wielding that label.

In one way, resilient can be wielded
and used to describe Black women

as a way to celebrate
how you survive oppression.

But it can also be wielded
in a way

that fetishizes strength
that says, you know what?

You are so strong we really don't
have to care about how we treat you.

[melancholy music playing]

[Cora Matthews] I went to a
segregated school. All Black.

And my parents had taught us
about the difference in the schools

I had heard of the fighting
and the Kirsten protest.

To get this undone where
we are to school together.

Even when I was going to
church, it would get so intense.

I used to hear my father free.

He would pray out loud,
you know,

and I always wanted to, uh,
pray like he did.

I would hear prayers.
That was just heartening

Just touching. It would make you
feel that guy was somewhere close.

You could just feel the
presence and that inspired me

to trust that same gut
and go to go to him in prayer

and asked that things would
get better.

There would be more unity in
the world.

I think there's something very deep there
when we talk about faith and Black women.

If you think about faith
as being committed

to something that's bigger
than yourself.

Faith as having hope for
the future.

Many Black women have to get
up every day

and have faith that they will
survive that day,

that their children will
survive that day,

and that their children's lives
will be better than their lives.

Faith is not only believing in
something that you can't see and touch,

but it's really expressing
your true potential,

a potential that there's not
evidence that anyone else believes in.

There's nothing else around you that is
reflecting back at you, who you truly are.

But you know who you are, right?

And so it's a reclamation
of your nobility.

It's a reclamation of your
inherent worth,

even if the world around you
does not believe it,

does not treat you
according to that.

Faith is the reason why we're
here, because we held onto that

against all evidence to
the contrary.

Ended slavery times.

That's what's got them through
a lot of the things

that they had to go
through. Prayer. Singing.

Can you sing me your favorite
gospel song that gets you through?

♪ Yes ♪

♪ Jesus loves me ♪

♪ Yes ♪

♪ Jesus ♪

♪ He loves me ♪

♪ Yes ♪

♪ Jesus ♪

♪ He loves me for the Bible ♪

♪ tells me so ♪

He loves me.

And part of our strength is the
knowing that that pain will end.

That we're going to make sure
it does.

You ain't gonna hit me no more.

I think what we're going to
find out is the tiniest things,

the things that we think are just
fleeting, in the big scheme of things,

I think those are going to be
what's most amplified

in terms of the value
of our lives.

And so I just hope that
we don't take it for granted.

The hardest lesson I had to
learn in life is stay strong

and knowing that I will
make it to the other side.

Learning how to bear with this
pain that I'm going through with John

and still be able to be there for
the rest of my family that needs me.

It's not a strength that means

that there's no vulnerability
and there's no pain, right?

There's wounds and there's
pain and there's vulnerability

and we refuse to submit to it.

And part of our strength is the
knowing that that pain will end.

That we're going to make sure
it does.

You ain't gonna hit me no more.

[melancholy music playing]

All those, you know,
generations of being told

what to do, when to do it, how
to do it like we did that already.

There is a kind of
fierce independence

and independence of mind,
of will, of tenacity, of knowing.

There is a sense of knowing
that Black women have.

It's a silent, quiet, and we
know it

because we can look
at each other and see it.

It's the reason why
we could look and smile

and give that nod
because it's a knowing.

You can't take that from us.

That's a spiritual reality.

That is that we were born
with, and that has galvanized,

I think, Black women in every
spot of the earth.

[instrumental music playing]

[Dr. Melina] Everything was
set up for us not to survive.

Our perseverance, our survival,
our resilience is a form of rebellion.

Refusing to succumb to the
oppressions that we live under.

If you could imagine
almost a diamond shaped chart.

The very top of the chart
is White men and their arrows.

Moving from that top box
to implication here

that White women
feel sexism from white men.

And then there's an arrow
from the White men

to men of color and men of
color feel racism from White men.

They also feel racism from White
women and then leading from White women

and men of color are two arrows
that lead to a box at the bottom,

and at the bottom is his women
of color.

Women of color feel racism
from White women,

racism from White men,
sexism from White men

and sexism from men of color.

And then when you look at that
box of women of color and you look at

where the disproportionate level
of injury is, health or otherwise,

you're going to have a box
below that and that's Black women.

So Black women then become
the oppressed of the oppressed.

We were meant to survive
as units of labor.

We were meant to survive
as commodities

that other people can use
for other purposes.

But we were never meant
to survive

as fully human beings
that are seen as fully human.

Rebelling against that is a
good thing.

I think that there's this
notion that you tried to bury us

and only discover we were seeds.

Is a rebellion.

[Dr. Patricia] Rebellion occurs
in so many different ways.

Sometimes when a Black woman
is sitting there being very quiet,

she is engaged in profound
rebellion in her own mind.

Sometimes rebellion
is the sister who stands up

and tells you about yourself
to your face.

Even though you did not
ask her to say anything.

Sometimes a rebellion
is working with the rules

within an institution to shift
them and tweak them a little bit,

so there's a little more of
this and a little less of that.

What I really love about Black women
is, um, the way in which we've engaged

in the struggle for power
in a way that's very different

to the White male
leadership model.

Our very existence, the way
that we move through the world,

um, is a refusal of both a White
supremacist system or a patriarchal system.

And so we're in the best
position to begin to try to imagine

and build something outside
of these oppressive systems.

I'm thinking about the
small-p politics in communities.

Charlotta Bass
who ran for vice president

and said, win or lose,
we win by raising the issues.

Women like Barbara Lee,
Karen Bass and others

who attempted to kind of
bridge community

organizing and kind of the work
that needs to be done, that's larger

than electoral politics and
using electoral politics is a tool.

I'm thinking of
Maxine Waters today.

I'm thinking of Shirley Chisholm,
who I got to act as in like,

a third grade play.

So we know some of their names,

but we don't know all of
their names.

We don't know every Black woman
who rose up on a slave plantation and said

we're going to have a work stoppage
or we don't know all of the Black women

who, during the civil rights
movement, took care of the folks

who were beaten or
marched themselves.

Black women can do anything.
We can make a meal out of nothing.

We can make music
out of sorrow, right?

We can write our feelings
and it becomes a poem.

We can transform
pain into laughter.

Maybe it's more than creativity.

Maybe it's magic.

Maybe that's
the Black girl magic.

[Dr. Patricia]
The dignity and struggle

is part of the beauty of
everyday life.

But you can't see it
when you're in the moment.

I really think the ordinary
Black people, Black women...

[Dr. Patricia sighs]

[Dr. Patricia] A small story, and
maybe this will give the feel of it.

My first class that I ever
taught on Black women,

I taught to eighth grade
Black girls.

And I had a course that I'd expose
them to kind of famous Black women.

And it's my exercise.
I ask them,

"Could you name a Black woman
that you really admire?"

They all said, my mother,

my grandmother, my sister.

They all named other Black
women that they knew in their lives.

This is a narrative we really
have to say more about.

I have a saying in my
household, right?

Mama can do anything, right?

So, like, um, somebody's,
I don't know,

toy will break and I'll fix it.

And I hand it back and I'll go
because Mama and they'll go

can do anything, right?
Because I can.

I can do anything.

Black women can do anything.
We can make a meal out of nothing.

We can make music
out of sorrow, right?

We can write our feelings
and it becomes a poem.

We can transform
pain into laughter.

Maybe it's more than creativity.

Maybe it's magic.

Maybe that's
the Black girl magic, right?

Black woman magic.

Because I'm not a girl.

Life has either come through us

or life has come to us,

and we've been charged
with shaping these lives.

And that is
miraculous and divine.

Just like the mothers before us

shaped things and made a way, we,
too, will shape things and make a way.

And so, for me, I think
about my grandmothers,

and I think about what I learned
from the women in my family.

You need to know more
about those shoulders

because they were able to bear
what few people in recent history

know anything about.

Where are those painful
memories? Where did they go?

How did you cope?
To deal with that?

How did you learn
to love yourself?

And how did you learn
to reconcile yourself?

In every single way
that we've been harmed

and traumatized throughout
history into the present.

Every single point is a site where
healing is occurring and has to occur.

I believe that healing,
survival, winning,

transforming, all of that
is rooted in spiritual work.

Tapping into
the Black women's energy

that's gone before us,
tapping into divine energy.

Being still and listening to
the voices of our foremothers

is what will heal, sustain
and win for us.

'Cause the whole point is, how
do we heal? And the healing part,

I say to people, I say, "Listen,
when I say we need to heal",

that's just not a nice word.

I'm not just saying that.

I'm saying that we must heal,
because if we don't heal,

"we actually
doom future generations."

We have to heal. It's
not philosophical, it's real.

And so, I think
the best thing we can do

is expand what and how
we consider healing

and to understand nothing is too
small to contribute to our healing.

And so, I think, let... let a
thousand forms of healing proliferate.

Every exchange,
that eye contact.

Someone who you're sitting at
the bus stop with, that exchange.

The little girl whose mom
is at the cash register,

who turns around
and looks at you,

how do you beam
some love at her?

There's so many ways that I
remember that I carry that love with me

that people didn't have
to show me love, you know.

That I've felt so,
you know, so sort of energized

by just random people
showing me that I was valuable.

So I do feel that it's my responsibility
not to waste any moments.

I think what we're going to
find out is the tiniest things,

the things that we think are just
fleeting in the big scheme of things,

I think those are going to be
what's most amplified

in terms of the value
of our lives.

And so I just hope that
we don't take it for granted.

[Dr. Melina] And so then beyond
spiritual work, there's each other.

So as we talk about healing,
we have to be willing

to see each other
and to help each other.

That's part of our healing as well, is
seeing each other as pieces of a puzzle,

as parts of a beautiful mosaic.

When Black women win, right,
we win. We have to lift as we climb.

It goes back to Black women
connecting with each other,

Black women
affirming each other.

[projector whirring]

[Jazmine] Resilience is the Black
girl magic they can't rip off of me.

I've spent far too many lives
perfecting the art of survival.

I have mastered mixing
the perfect shades of red

over split lips
I chewed silence into.

I tuned my laughter like a
violin in office break rooms

to drown out the screaming of token
Blackness I couldn't fully swallow.

Like flagpoles and statues,

I have climbed corporate ladders
and rang the alarm from the top.

I've been handcuffed on my
high horse without flinching.

I've learned
what shadows to dust

over swollen eyelids that
squint in prayer all night.

For sons with bandannas
in their pockets

and for sons with Skittles
in their hoodies.

Overlooked for a wife,
I married myself

to education and travel, went
to bed with wine on my tongue

and Isn't She Lovely
playing from my nightstand.

When the terror of burning crosses
began to visit me in my sleep,

I urged myself to dream from
balconies and every corner of the earth.

Dedicated the sum of my life
to the fingertips of ancestors,

touching lands
of their wildest visions,

redefining what it means
to be grounded.

Reclaiming my roots
and my limbs.

These days, I wrap my arms

around great oaks that used to haunt
me with visions of blood on their leaves

and nearly break down
at the miracle of me,

still standing like a tree that
should have been destroyed

by the fires and the floods
and the feds a long time ago.

But by some Black girl magic,
I'm still here.

You got to have long straight
hair, that you're beautiful.

No.

You've got to be beautiful
to be skinny.

No. We thick.

We ain't skinny. We chunky. We
like meat. We got meat on our...

That's beautiful.

Beyonce got in trouble
when she wore the 'fros,

when she walked out with the...

You know, again,
she has an image

that White people thought
that they were controlling.

Until she says, "No, you don't
actually get to control that."

The myth that Black women
are not beautiful is just that.

It's a myth.

And only those who fall for it
and believe it...

You know, those are the ones that
are... are miseducated and are missing out.

You could have a Black person
with perfectly high self esteem say,

"Oh, yeah, she would have been
really pretty if she wasn't so dark."

That will say to...
say to another Black person.

This is a person
with high self esteem.

"Yeah, well, of course
he was attractive.

He had good hair
and he was light-skinned."

The standard of beauty, and this
is a really important historical piece,

is to understand that...

[sighs] Again,
going back to the 1800s.

With the concept of Caucasian also
came the concept of Caucasian beauty.

So beauty and Caucasian were simultaneously
placed into a "scientific" category.

Normal human beauty
is Caucasian,

so they began to assign
beauty with science.

And so therefore, if beauty is
equated with Caucasian and whiteness,

then anything outside of that,
then, becomes something,

one, that is abnormal
and not beautiful.

So anything that has to do
with being Black

then becomes relegated to,
again, other.

To not normal,
not healthy, not beautiful.

You got to have long straight
hair, that you're beautiful.

No.

You've got to be beautiful
to be skinny.

No. We thick.

We ain't skinny. We chunky. We
like meat. We got meat on our...

That's beautiful.

It's the idea of claiming
all parts of yourself

and the multiple skin tones
and histories

and hair textures
of Black women ourselves.

[Dr. Ruha] So the dichotomy
isn't simply be white or be natural.

Hair is a side
of creativity, right?

So not being able
to be pinned down...

People's decisions about
what to do with their hair

are based on their own experiences
of being treated differently.

I work very close
with the CEOs of the company

and they're all white men.
And I was asking my mom,

I was like, "Should I get
these faux locs?

Like, is that appropriate
for work?"

Now, if you're trying
to move up, you know,

you don't want upset
Mr. Jimmy or Miss Ann.

I mean, you're talking
about generations of people

that have been telling you both within
the culture and outside the culture,

that there's something
intrinsically wrong with your hair.

I thought about it,
and I was like,

"Yeah, of course I'm
gonna get these faux locs."

Like, to just do what I want
to do and be expressive

'cause either people
are going to love it

or they're going to hate it,
but either way, like, it's...

it's who I am,
and I want to embrace that.

[Cora] Short hair is beautiful
as well as long hair.

But sometimes
we like the long hair.

We want to swing it, you know.

[laughs] Um, what I love
about my hair

is that I could practically
do anything with it.

Our hair is just strong
and beautiful.

We can go from being natural
to pressed out.

We're so creative in the way that
we can look one way on Monday

and on Tuesday we look completely
different than we look on Wednesday.

[inaudible]

[Cora] Black is beautiful.

Simple.

All shades.

[Sheila] Blackness
is so beautiful.

We're talented

because we have the ability
to recreate ourselves.

And we're sexy.

You know, the way that
a Black woman's hips,

the waist, you know,
the lips and the eyes

and the nose that are just so
full. That people pay money,

big money, to have our lips
and the roundness of our butts.

Just, our bodies...
We're just... just beautiful.

In every essence, there's nothing
more beautiful than a Black woman.

[interviewer] How do you embrace
beauty as a young Black woman?

By telling myself I'm beautiful
every day in the mirror.

It's a good strategy.

[interviewer] And who
taught you that?

Myself.

I had to.

I am cross-eyed
and people every day ask me,

"What's wrong with your eyes?"

Sometimes it'll get me down.

But I just gotta go to the
mirror, tell myself I'm beautiful.

[interviewer] Was it hard to do that
initially? To go in front of the mirror

and tell yourself
that you're beautiful?

No.

'Cause I was never afraid
to come to myself

and tell myself how I'm feeling.

Makes me feel like I'm in power.

I'm able to do
what I would like to.

[Dr. Patricia] We believe
in your beauty.

We believe
in your possibilities.

We believe in your power.

And if you haven't started believing in
yourself yet, today is a good day to start.

One thing
that I love about myself

is my ability to love people.

That I make people laugh.

- And I also make myself laugh.
- That I learned how to spell

Because I go to school
and I learn a lot of things.

That I'm artistic.

I like my skin color
and my hair.

I like that I am outspoken
and I strive for what I want.

[woman] What does the phrase
Black Girl Magic mean to you?

The phrase Black Girl Magic

means there's no other thing
that is as great to me, personally,

as Black girls. Black girls
are just great.

I don't really know how
to explain that, but, like,

they're just, so like
they said, magical.

It's like, you know, magic's
something you want to believe

and it's something you want to see.
It's something that you want to be.

You were like, I want
to do magic, you know?

And so they're so...
It's just something that

you want to look up to and look
after and just, you know, be around.

I feel like that's that magic, totally
describes a Black girl, for sure.

If we all,
but certainly Black women,

are fully human people
ourselves, that

would be the greatest gift
to the society.

If the beauty and the genius
of Black women

were ever recognized

and allowed to flourish, I can only
imagine what a contribution that would be.

We cannot allow
the experiences of those

upon whose shoulders we stand
to be erased from memory.

Someone paid for me to be here,
and I am going to acknowledge

those people who suffered
so much so that I could be here.

How could I not?

[woman] As a sociologist.

The way that my training
has helped me understand

the emotional and mental
well-being of Black women

is to understand that if I
want, for example, Black girls

to love themselves, I can't
just put up posters on the wall

and affirmations as the cure for
centuries of racism and sexism.

But I have to create
an environment

that shouts love at them
so that they can hear it

reverberate
in themselves, right?

It makes me think about my grandmother
who used to tell me when I was little.

I was so small, in fact,
when she would tell me this

that I would be looking
up at her hand

as she was holding my hand.
She would look down at me

and she would point
to her head and she'd go,

Always remember, you're smart
and you come from smart people.

She would always do that, and I
think, part of what she was trying to do,

well, she was trying to buttress me.
She was trying to strengthen me because

she knew that I would enter a world
that wouldn't say that I was smart,

that didn't necessarily like me or
value me. She told me that my whole life,

and I told it to my
grandchildren and my children,

and it's one of those things in our
family where we just kind of smile.

It's like an inoculation
that was given.

Ever since I was a child,
I've always walked in a light

and I hear this from
my family and my peers.

It's like I can do anything
and be anything.

This little light of mine
I'm going to let it shine.

What is the light that is
inside of you,

that compels you to shine?

Because that's the beauty
I see in you.

Music makes me happy.

A lot of emotions can be
expressed through music.

I've been dancing since I was very
little. I love how freely I get to move.

It's like you can dance wild
and it will be okay.

[woman] What kind of music
do you listen to?

- Um, Beyonce. I always say Beyonce.
- Beyonce.

- Beyonce.
- Beyonce.

Beyonce has done it all.
She's Queen Bee

as royalty in this world, and
she's, I mean, she is Black.

It's really mind-breaking
to see that everybody,

you know, a lot of people,
a lot of people love Beyonce.

[woman] What do you
love about Beyonce?

That she doesn't care
what other people think.

Beyonce got in trouble
when she wore the 'fros,

when she walked out with the...
You know, again, she has an image

that White people thought
that they were controlling.

Until she says no, you don't
actually get to control that.

My favorite artist
is Willow Smith.

She puts out music because
her music has a message.

SZA.

I've been listening to her
for years.

One thing I love about SZA
is she has so much sex appeal,

and she doesn't try to hide it. Like, I
feel like she lets it out and it's amazing.

If you think about
our sexuality,

for generations, right,
it has been the site

of so much policing,
control and theft.

What we see in this generation is
an attempt to reclaim that sexuality.

I think the arts have been
essential to survival.

There's something powerful
about reclaiming terms

and making them mean
something different

because then you are controlling
the agenda and the discourse.

You are not following
behind it, trying to correct it.

[woman] What has been
our greatest gift to society

as Black women?

I think if we all,
but certainly Black women,

are fully human people
ourselves, that

would be the greatest gift
to the society.

If the beauty and the genius of
Black women as I know it to be,

because I know a lot of Black
women were ever recognized

and allowed to flourish, I can only
imagine what a contribution that would be.

I think the Black woman's greatest
gift to society has been truth-teller,

speaking truth, speaking
truth to power.

Black women, I think, have
kept this society accountable

because we're not willing
to not stand in our truth

and to not speak to truth and
not to live what is true for us

in the best way
that we know how.

I want my greatest gift
to society to be my words.

When I look at myself, I see
somebody who speaks her mind,

who says whatever I need to say.

As a black woman, my life,

my life to be a gift
to the society.

Some, I have done something
or said something

that has enhanced
somebody's life,

that have touched somebody's
life, that I have lived.

If I could describe the
Black woman in three words.

I would say beautiful,

strong,

excellent.

Strong, loving, rebellious.

- Strong.
- Strong.

- Strong.
- Strong, independent, and bold.

Un-bossed.

- And beautiful.
- Beautiful, awesome.

- Empowered.
- [woman] Dynamic.

- [woman] Loving.
- Caring.

- Hard-working.
- [woman] Brave.

Divine. I think that
Black women are divine.

I think Black women are the closest
that there is on this earth to God.

Um, I think that

we submit. We're vessels.

We're filled. Um...

To be one of self-fashioning,

to be one of experimenting
with new ways

of being in the world
and relating to one another.

Um, that pushes forward.

And there's not one that uses history
as an anchor that weighs us down.

I just want Black women
to be more free,

and to just go after,
you know, whatever

they want to go after.

A legacy of...

...dreams realized.

The legacy is the unbroken
intergenerational

commitment to black womanhood,
and making sure it doesn't end with me,

and recognizing all that went
into creating that legacy.

As a Black mother,

Black grandmother as a
Black wife,

as a Black social scientist,
a Black professor,

um, a Black social activist,

I think it's critical that

I mind this lane that speaks

about our history
and our reality.

We cannot allow
the experiences of those

upon whose shoulders we stand
to be erased from memory.

I stand on shoulders that have
allowed me to be all of those things,

to be the mother that I am and the professor
and the professional person that I am.

Someone paid for me to be here,
and I am going to acknowledge

those people who suffered
so much so that I could be here.

How could I not?

I think that very critical
piece to our being well

is knowing our own stories, and
knowing and creating our own narrative.

And the only way that can happen
is if we ensure that it happens.

There's no culture in
the world that will readily

and deliberately erase
their history.

We can't erase ours.

If your life is narrated through

someone else's words and lens,
then it's not your life.

You have to be able
to give words to it,

give names to it and
not allow it to be distorted

through someone else's lens.

By telling our own story,

saying names like Zora Neale
Hurston and reading Octavia Butler

and talking about women like Septima
Clark and Fannie Lou Hamer, and others

whose names you may not know.
And, we can't lose the stories

that our own mothers, the stories of
our own grandmothers and daughters,

documenting our own narratives
like when we talk about

the Black Lives Matter
moment is absolutely

a Black women's moment
in history.

We have to uplift the women
who were on the ground,

who were the primary forces
leading that work.

The reason why it's so
important that we continue to write

Black women into history
and we refuse the invisiblizing

of our experiences
is because what we remember

is directly tied to what
we create in the future.

But if I don't remember that, if I
don't recall those experiences,

then I'm very likely to contribute
to a world that reproduces it

and allow other people
to reproduce it.

And if you control the corporations
and you control the media

and you control higher ed,
you control all of that,

you really can't ignore
what Black women say.

It's kind of at your leisure
to listen to them,

if you're that powerful. Black women
have to look at all the different ways

that different groups have
suppressed that knowledge.

White men certainly are
running the game here,

elite white men.

I mean, that there's
no surprise there.

We cannot relinquish the power
to define ourselves.

This is the power
of self-definition.

It fundamentally says if you don't
tell your own story, somebody else will.

[woman] If you could talk
to your 14-year-old self,

and send her a love letter,
and tell your 14-year-old self

something you've never told her
bit you've always wanted to tell her,

what would you say to her?

I would tell my
14-year-old self,

be strong, trust in God
in all things, and lean not

to your own understanding.
Follow his guidance.

And, Cora, I love you.

To not take things so seriously,

to relax a little more, um...

get a passport
and go see the world.

You don't have to stress
the small stuff.

No one's perfect.

You are enough
and you're good enough.

None of the things that
I'm worrying about right now

are going to matter
in the long run,

so to just relax

and be chill.

Be kind...

and loving...

to everyone.

And always love yourself.

Love yourself.

Be you.

Educate yourself.

Stay strong.

Don't settle for nothing.

And reach for the sky.

[Dr. DeGruy] I always
tell people, "Tell your story."

"It's really important."

And those generations of wisdom,

those generations
of long suffering,

those long days of not knowing

what tomorrow
was going to bring,

so much power,
so much wisdom there,

so much healing.

[Jazmine Williams] Sis...

Have you ever been
so madly aware of your beauty

that you have a shout out to God

for making you
in her perfect image?

Have you ever been so aware
of your magic

that you walk into a room full of
other black women and see theirs too?

Do you grin from ear when yo see
your reflections walking down the street,

skin glowing like she just
walked out of a rain forest,

where she bathes in a waterfall

lit by a rainbow smile,

like she eats prayer
for breakfast,

and meditation for lunch.

Hair that sings praises
for her maker

with the ever so slight
turn up her chin.

Sis...

have you ever been so satisfied
with the way you shine after a storm?

That you laugh at the thought of
you ever having been nervous at all?

Do you even notice
how hard you hustle?

How you make your manifestations
look as natural as breathing.

Like you were born to balance
the world on your head

while building empires upon it.

Sis...

Has anyone's hold you lately

how fine you look
in graduation caps?

How stunning you are turning the key
to the home you secure for your family,

how you sit like a gym on stages

discussing your lived
experiences.

Do you know
that you are a visionary

with foresight worth decades?

Because time
is the only currency

that does your value justice.

Do you know that
you are priceless?

Have you heard
that you would need

a mirror
about the size of the ocean

to see all of your light
in its entirety?

Even with all the miracles
you spin,

you are still effortless
in your glory.

Did you know
that you're my role model,

that I live for your wisdom
and grace?

You've given me quotes
to live and die with.

I go to war with the fire
you put in me.

You were always
my standard of excellence.

You were always
my standard of beauty.

[woman vocalizing]

♪ Ooh ♪

[woman vocalizing]