Hey! Hey!

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This is for my dark-skinned girls….

“Thank God I’m very satisfied with the way God created me and I wouldn’t change a thing. I consider myself a woman endowed with inner beauty. I have acquired many wonderful principles from my family and I intend to follow these for the rest of my life.” – Leila Lopes, Miss Universe, 2011

When asked on stage during the Miss Universe pageant what physical trait she’d change if she could….

I thought about all the dark-skinned women that preceded Leila, Genevieve Nnaji; Jackie Appiah; Stephanie Okereke; Oprah Winfrey; Whoopi Goldberg; Mo’Nique; Angela Bassett, Korto Momolu, Chimamanda Adichie, Dambisa Moyo, Ory Okolloh, Khanyi Dhlomo, Funmi Iyanda…*did I miss anyone?!?….insert name here please*

And I thought of the same power that prompted Anna Julia Cooper in 1892 to tell a group of black clergymen,

“Only the black woman can say, ‘when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole . . . race enters with me.’”

And I say to every dark-skinned girl….they’ve entered so you too, can be fully present….

Watch Leila’s crowning moment:

Super proud!

The 2011  Miss Universe Film:

As I always say….

 

AFRICAN GIRLS ROCK!