Dear Little Sweet Thang 'Nita

Why should we care, the unspoken question goes, what some little Black girl thinks?

'They' asked it about me, growing up in Seattle; 'they' will continue to ask it. You should care; the cultures and experiences I want to represent in my creative work come from a different reality, but that is a valuable strength.

I am a 24-year old African-American woman making film and writing with a voice strained through Louisiana, Seattle, living and traveling abroad, and a fascination with the historical and societal value of 'untold stories'. The stories of people of ethnic diversity are not really untold; we certainly tell them to each other, and I can attest to my own efforts to make them accessible to everyone.

An emerging artist I am, with only one completed work on film; but, having had the experience of raising the primary share of funds by myself for Charm School from my own earnings, I have gained a realistic understanding of the difficulty of filmmaking and finding ways to finance this necessity of creating and communicating through media arts. The protagonists of my film work and screenplays, people of color, are not well represented in existing media both in terms of realistic. Portrayals and of our presence in this country.  I see these unfortunate and deliberate tendencies in both mainstream and alternative media: encouragement of racist stereotypes and attitudes, enforced obscurity, or exoticism. There is African-American life and history beyond the land of the homeboys and rap music videos.

The familiar theme of the universal nature of human experience only sounds cliché because it is based in truth. However, this does not mean that cultural differences should be ignored. In my opinion, the future of urbanized and diverse societies depends upon people's ability to appreciate cultural differences while simultaneously understanding that they are not different. As the late poet Pat Parker wrote in her poem For the White Person  Who  Wants To Be My  Friend, "The first thing you must do is forget that I am Black. The second thing you must do is never forget that I am Black." That duality is an element of the film work I wish to create, something to convey both thematically and visually; it is important in my efforts both as a developing artist and in my survival skills of daily life.

Who cares what that little Black girl has to say? I will continue making art, because there are so many people who will, and do, care--and so that, finally, 'they' will hear the voice too... –Artist statement