{"id":45036,"date":"2016-01-10T21:55:16","date_gmt":"2016-01-10T21:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=45036"},"modified":"2016-01-10T21:55:16","modified_gmt":"2016-01-10T21:55:16","slug":"how-our-february-cover-star-amandla-stenberg-learned-to-love-her-blackness%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=45036","title":{"rendered":"How Our February Cover Star Amandla Stenberg Learned to Love Her Blackness\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Our February Cover Star Amandla Stenberg Learned to Love Her Blackness<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Teen Vogue<\/a>
\n2016-01-07<\/p>\n

Solange Knowles<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Edited by Elaine Welteroth<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nPhotograph by Ben Toms<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

She tells all to Solange Knowles in our latest issue.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have a confession to make: I didn\u2019t prepare for my interview with Amandla Stenberg<\/a>. Though we had never met, from the outside looking in, I recognized her so deeply that I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d need to. There\u2019s a secret language shared among black girls who are destined to climb mountains and cross rivers in a world that tells us to belong to the valleys that surround us. You learn it very young, and although it has no words, you hear it clearly. You sense it when you walk into rooms with your hair in full bloom, each coil glorious, your sway swift and your stance proud. You feel it like a rhythm you can\u2019t shake if you even dared to quiet the sounds<\/p>\n

Our conversation quickly reveals that Amandla knows it all too well: \u201cI think that as a black girl you grow up internalizing all these messages that say you shouldn\u2019t accept your hair or your skin tone or your natural features, or that you shouldn\u2019t have a voice, or that you aren\u2019t smart,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel like the only way to fight that is to just be yourself on the most genuine level and to connect with other black girls who are awakening and realizing that they\u2019ve been trying to conform.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How Our February Cover Star Amandla Stenberg Learned to Love Her Blackness Teen Vogue 2016-01-07 Solange Knowles Edited by Elaine Welteroth Photograph by Ben Toms She tells all to Solange Knowles in our latest issue. I have a confession to make: I didn\u2019t prepare for my interview with Amandla Stenberg. Though we had never met, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,13743,8],"tags":[20697,22575,22574,22573],"class_list":["post-45036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-interviews","category-media-archive","tag-amandla-stenberg","tag-elaine-welteroth","tag-solange-knowles","tag-teen-vogue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45037,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45036\/revisions\/45037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}