Growing up as an African-American female, I’ve always seen throughout the media how society easily chooses to be more accepting of those with fairer skin tone rather than uplift those of various skin tones. When I learned about the #BlackGirlMagic movement, I was truly happy to see that, finally, there was a movement for women like myself.
According to the Huffington Post, Black Girl Magic would be defined as “a term used to illustrate the universal awesomeness of black women. It’s about celebrating anything we deem particularly dope, inspiring, or mind-blowing about ourselves,” and honestly, I couldn’t have said it better myself. The purpose of the hashtag isn’t to bring women of other races down, but simply, for once, to build black females of all ages up and remind them that they can be just as capable of achieving amazing things as women of any other color.
This past February, in addition to Black History Month, Essence magazine dedicated three separate covers of to celebrate the Black Girl Magic movement. One covered featured activist Johnetta “Netta” Elzie, and the two other covers featured actresses Teyonah Parris (well known for her breakthrough role in “Dear White People”) and Yara Shadidi (well known for her role as Zoey on the ABC sitcom “Black-ish”).
#BlackGirlMagic is teaching young women today to never let the color of their skin stop them from following their dreams. Black feminists such as 17-year-old Amandla Stenburg have been spreading the positivism that Black Girl Magic is all about for years through various social media platforms, especially, in Stenburg's case, Tumblr. In her Twitter bio, she simply says “made of Magic + macabre.” Stenburg also co-directed a video series dedicated to #BlackGirlMagic for Teen Vogue. The series includes videos about things black girls are tired of hearing, hair stories and how learning to embrace yourself is a constant process.
So why is #BlackGirlMagic important? Because it is a platform that is teaching the future generation it is possible to be black and still accomplish several great things. If anything, the point of the hashtag is to show that black girls are beautiful just the way they are and should never be afraid to be the person they were meant to be just because of their skin color. It is giving them something to help them express themselves and their accomplishments through social media. Most importantly, it lets the world know that, even though culture has a certain standard of beauty, we absolutely don’t need it and are comfortable with being the people that we are.
The movement was created by CaShawn Thompson back in 2013 when she started using the hashtag #BlackGirlsAreMagic. Her creation of the movement was in response to seeing how black women in the media are constantly being told they don’t fit the standard or ideal images of femininity and beauty. In the past three years, her movement has taken over several social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
