I am a coloured girl

I was 21 when I discovered Ntozake Shange. I read an excerpt from her book "For coloured girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf". I was excited, inspired and nervous at finding someone who wrote about being a woman of colour so fearlessly, so passionately and so openly. I hunted that book down everywhere, I visited second hand book shops religiously in hopes that I would find a copy, battered and worn from years of reading, years of inspiring, years of affirming. But I had no luck, so like I always do when all else fails I turned to Google. There I found bits and pieces of the choreo-poem written in 1974, it blew my mind to think that the issues Ms Shange wrote about then were still relevant to a child born in 1988.


I am a black woman. I am an intelligent black woman. A woman who by virtue of her skin has no choice but to be tough because the world doesn’t believe that black can be beautiful. Ms Shange’s writing tells women to be reliant on themselves, to love deeply but carefully. Her writing is so necessary for women of colour who have been disinherited and dispossessed. She deals with issues that all women go through whether inadvertently or directly.

Rape, abuse, abandonment, incest, abortions or promiscuity.

I have family members who have been raped, Aunts who have been abused, friends who have had abortions and my whole tertiary experience was punctuated with the sounds of girls too young to know better screaming in all the right places during sex. The world is a tough place especially when you’re made to feel like an observer of life, never invited to participate in the living. I’ve written about my own insecurities after being “abandoned” by the most beautiful woman in the world, how difficult it was to be the woman I wanted my sisters to model themselves after. I was 6. I had big shoes to fill, but I grabbed those size six pumps, slipped my pampered little feet in and wore them till they fit. Because as a woman life demands you to cope, it demands you to smile through pain, it convinces you to lie to the world and cover up your bruises – talking ‘bout “I fell down the stairs”. Women are soft, beautiful, delicate beings; tough, fierce, strong things – things of resilience, stories of their strength repeatedly told over the years but woman is handled carelessly, her laugh is taken for granted, her tears aren’t a thing of importance. Ms Shange’s poem “Dark phrases” state simply what I’ve always known to be true;

“Let her be born

Let her be born

And handled warmly.”

All the people woman encounters in her life should strive to handle her warmly, should seek her smile, should walk to the ends of the earth to stop her eyes from brimming with tears.

I was nervous when I was settled down with the DVD about to start. I was wary of a man effectively telling the story and struggles of black women. A story that needs no hysterics, that is ugly because it is simple, beautiful because it is not. I enjoy Tyler Perry’s work and I did so with no discernment until I realized there was a formula to all his movies. I didn’t need that formula here.

The cast was made of 9 well established actresses; Thandie Newton, Whoopi Goldberg, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington, Loretta Devine, Phyllicia Rashad, Janet Jackson; Kimberly Elise and Tessa Thompson. The stand out performance for me was Anika Noni Rose, when she recited her poem about “the nature of rape has changed. We invite them into our homes, cook for him, kiss him goodnight and are caught unaware when the stranger we expect the intrusion from doesn’t show up. And we are raped. By invitation.” It broke my heart.

This movie had some rough moments but it was definitely uncomfortable at times to watch, as well it should be. It shouldn’t be easy to see;

a woman get raped in her own home,
a young girl who has sex for the first time have to face the harrowing decision to venture into a shady house in Harlem to terminate her pregnancy,
a woman facing a life with HIV because of an unfaithful husband who’s all too accustomed to fixing everything with “I’m sorry”,
a woman who uses sex to feel powerful over men.

Tyler Perry took on a tough challenge but he pulled it off. It wasn’t flawless but it worked, it was captivating, heart wrenching and so very beautiful.

I went to sleep thinking about all that life has in store for me, not because of the colour of my skin, not because of my gender but because I am and I can and I do and…the rainbow is enuf.




www.thenewsworld.com