Guest post: "I don't want my daughter to be the 'token black girl'"

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In the summer of 2015, my three-year-old daughter Riley-Ann's request each day when she came home from nursery was the same: to have long, straight hair like her teachers, friends, and favourite cartoon characters. When this first happened, I stayed silent, thinking it was a phase that would soon pass. But she kept insisting on wearing a hat, and kept asking for different hair. I was surprised: I'd always made a conscious effort to tell her she is beautiful and surround her with a diverse range of books, dolls, family and friends.

I told Riley-Ann that her curly afro hair was beautiful - but this didn't work. One day, her request changed: she didn't ask for straight hair, but for white skin. She said she didn't want to be brown any more.

My heart sank, but I was careful not to react. I felt sad - angry, even - at what she was saying. I knew that just telling Riley-Ann to recognise her inner and outer beauty wouldn't work. I needed to show her that there were children out there that looked like her.

Step in, Annie. In the latest remake of the film the lead is played by the young black actress Quvenzhané Wallis. I thought to myself, if this doesn't work, I don't know what will.

I put the DVD on and walked into the kitchen, hoping this final attempt to get Riley-Ann to see the beauty of her natural hair and skin would work. Five minutes into the film - before the first song had even ended - she ran into the kitchen screaming "Mummy - take out my plaits." Grabbing me by the hand she pulled me into the living room and again asked me to remove her plaits. So I did. I took out every single one of those small plaits with beads on the ends that I had only just put in the day before.
Halfway through the film, I finished undoing her hair, and Riley-Ann immediately jumped up. "Mummy, look - Annie is beautiful... I am Annie and Annie is me. She LOOKS LIKE ME." For the first time, I truly understood the power of positive reflective imagery for children.

In her role as Annie, Quvenzhané Wallis had inspired Riley-Ann to embrace her natural hair and beautiful brown skin. To Riley-Ann, she was a superstar, the first young black girl with naturally curly afro hair that she'd seen on screen. My daughter saw herself in Annie, and felt empowered and inspired - so much so that the film was stuck on repeat for the rest of the weekend. I didn't mind, though, because my child fell back in love with the hair that grew out of her scalp and her dark brown melanin skin.

Riley-Ann had aspirations to be like Quvenzhané Wallis, and she was already modelling at this point. The agency treated her well, and offered her lots of jobs - but I quickly noticed that ad campaigns will often only feature one child of colour. Riley-Ann became the token black girl and I didn't feel comfortable with this. What about all the other little beautiful black girls? I wondered.

A lack of representation doesn't just affect children; it affects their parents too. When TV screens and billboards are populated almost entirely by white children with a token ethnic minority child, it can feel like we're not getting anywhere in our fight for diversity. I reached the point where I couldn't bear for my daughter to express any more negativity about herself, but I couldn't just sit back and complain - I had to do something. As a freelance producer, I have the skills to be a change-maker. So, I set up Looks Like Me talent and model agency. We aim to increase inclusivity, visibility and employability of Black and Minority Ethnic children in the creative sector and advertising, offering casting directors diversity when selecting artists or models from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds.

Redefining beauty with Looks Like Me, we can create an industry where black children are the norm, rather than token additions. Perhaps then, it won't take an 'Annie moment' for other little black girls to realise they're beautiful.

How old is your DD SpecialAgent?

I found your guest post to be really informative, and I agree that there's no reason why we shouldn't encourage a wider mix of people in advertising and so on. I think it would be better for everyone if this is the case.

Thanks for the book recommendedation hesterton

Six Queen

I love that book hesterton - my DC who is mixed race is not Afro but there are other things that apply too plus it was just plain interesting.

I think this is great. It's a shame so many are missing the point, but I guess it's understandable - if they haven't been on the receiving end of it there would be no real reason for them to "get it".

I'm signing up to your website now and I'm going to forward it on to DSis as DN really wants to get into modelling but keeps on leaving different agencies because of the tokenism!

I'd say it's likely she'll grow out of hating her hair the older she gets :) SpecialAgent, I've seen that be the case on many occasions. It's something that I worried about with my DD so I'm constantly pointing out any representations of natural Afro hair that we come across and being overly positive about it. The hair think can run so deep with little black/mixed race girls :(

Given that most Black women in Europe don't wear natural hair/styles, and have mostly weaves....the evidence is not, that girls grow out of the dislike of their hair

Mjingaxx what I mean is, if specialAgent is positively reinforcing how her DD feels about her hair which I inferred from her post that she probably is, then it is much more likely that her DD will grow out of hating her hair than other black or mixed race little girls who have parents who may not necessarily understand the Issues surround little girls and Afro hair.

Also, whilst yes there are a lot of black women that wear weaves etc, I don't think we can be so bold as to say "most". There has been a significant shift in the amount of black people wearing their hair naturally in the past decade or so. You'll also find that many black women opt to wear weaves to protect their natural hair temporarily (some Afro hair textures do not cope well with daily manipulation on a prolonged basis as it can be prone to breakage) and you'll also find that some women wear weaves to transition from chemically straightened hair to natural Afro hair.
In short, it is not accurate to assume that most women who wear weaves are evidence of never growing out of hating their hair or indeed that they hated their hair in the first place.

I enjoyed this piece. Thought-provoking and well-written.

I do the same thing Queen, princess Tiana and Annie really helped. It was around the same time the Disney princess obsession started that this started. Then it became I want to blonde like mummy, so DH had to stop calling me princess (I know, I know!) because we were worried what she was taking away from it.

Disney has so much to answer for!

DD(7) has also been reading the Obi and Titi books which she really enjoys. It's nice to have stories with black characters without the story being about them being black.

For hair, I gave the book I Love My Hair to a friend whose DD(3) was coming home from nursery wanting straight hair. Apparently it went down very well!

Is not bold to say most, it is accurate. Not necessarily weaves, but chemically straightened at the very least
The reason they are wearing weaves, is irrelevant to the example they are setting

A Google search suggests 1 in 4 under-10s are BME. I don't know what proportion are Afro-Caribbean or mixed Afro-Caribbean, though. Maybe half? Maybe someone knows how to find out. So obviously that's the ethnic diversity that needs to be represented, on average.

One problem is that the ethnic makeup of the population is different in different parts of the country, so depending on where a TV show or whatever is based, it may and should have different representations of different ethnicities. The tokenism of maths questions I remember from my childhood - "Sarah, David, Michael and Sandip each have three apples" (with seemingly every question having precisely one BME kid, and one girl) seemed strange in the entirely-white (and 50% female) town I grew up in, and would seem strange somewhere with a broader ethnic mix too. Broadcasters seem not to be up to date with the higher numbers of BME people in younger age groups than in older ones, which is also unhelpful. Children need people who look like them, but something also needs to change in the culture because "people who look like me" is not enough. I can't remember where I read it, so this might be bullshit, but I vaguely remember reading observations made in the past where children were offered baby dolls to play with, and children of all ethnicities preferred the white baby dolls, even at a quite early age.

And yy to needing better representation of disabled children, children with SN, etc.

Mjing, black women do not exist to set an example. What needs to happen is not people telling women how they should wear their hair in order to set a good example.

All adults set an example to children

I love this post. As a child, I remember taking scissors into the toilets and attempted to cut off my thick, afro hair. Thankfully they were the blunt, plastic scissors that didn't stand a chance against my locks. I went home to my mum and sobbed. I also remember my little sister trying to scrub her 'colour' away in the bath. As adults we embrace our ethnicity but it was difficult as a youngster. I am now married to a white man and my DS has soft curls but I am expecting a DD any day now and there is a part of me that wonders what texture her hair will be and if she'll one day experience the anguish I did over it. At least I have some experience in this and can support her whereas my mother was born and raised in Jamaica. I had hoped by the time I had children, people from all cultures/backgrounds/walks of life would be better represented in the media but it's a slow process. I mean this for not just black people. I have noticed that most families on adverts these days represent a mixed race family, like my own. This is great but I can't help wondering why we can't have ad where an Asian family advertise the latest snacks or a disabled child is shown playing with the latest toy.

Tangentially, gov.uk says ≈6% of children are disabled, which doesn't seem represented in the media, though what proportion of those children have visible disabilities is of course not specified. And it's entirely possible that the numbers are higher - I don't know how they worked it out, so they may have accounted for this, but, for example, I have an invisible disability which was undiagnosed until a couple of years ago but which did affect me a a child.

There are a few child models who have a visible disability:

Marks and Spencer

Frugi

It could be argued though that DS is a "cute" disability.

I also notice that a lot of the mixed race Afro children who are in ads etc. have free hair which is "acceptable" to a lot of White people on kids but not braids etc. which I know from some Black friends/mums of Black kids can be a lot better for their hair.

Great post op

A good friend of mine is from Malaysia, her DH is white British. We've discussed media representation often, and I thought she made a very good point with accents. Her DD went through a phase of mimicking her mother's accent when she was angry - Because not only are there very few mixed race Asian children/family's on television, there is actually quite a lot of mocking Asian accents. So it's not just looks. It seems to be anything that's not white. And white British. It even has to be 'the RIGHT sort of white'

Oh yes SpecialAgent, my mother is white but has "an accent" and if anyone with her accent is on TV then they are always a massive stereotype (it was even worse when I was growing up in the 1970s).

"The reason they are wearing weaves, is irrelevant to the example they are"

This comment tell me exactly how little you understand of the depth of this issue.

It goes back generations, has roots embedded in the history of slavery, colonisation etc etc

Let's not forget, conforming to a European standard of beauty was and in some places still is, the norm for women of non European cultures. That is why the issue of media representation is so important. It's not as simple as flinging a Doc McStuffins outfit on my DD and saying "oh there's a character you can actually look like", it's about building her identity as a black girl who will eventually become a black woman.

hesterton, I've seen similar social experiments take place where kids from various races are presented with a black doll and a white doll. Literally breaks my heart 😔