When we first got introduced to young black actress,
Amandla Stenberg , she was the young Rue, who battled
alongside Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games Part
2. Prior to that, the world got a whiff of her strong
voice and character after her video – Don’t Cash Crop
by Cornrows – went viral.
After that moment, her name was added to the list of
young African/American women revolutionizing the
walls of African/American beauty today.
For the February 2016 edition of TeenVogue , Amandla
sits with fellow Black beauty reformer, Solange
Knowles for an interview between ‘sistas’. In a few
minutes they touch on race, Natural Hair, cultural
appropriation, being a black actress, the machine that
is Hollywood and more.
‘Read excerpts from the interview and see shots of
Amandla for the magazine below;
***
On being called the ‘N-Word’ and realizing she would
have to take a stand as a Black actress in Hollywood
It was when I was 12 and I got cast in The Hunger
Games, and people called me the N-word and said that
the death of my character, Rue, would be less sad
because I was black. That was the first moment I
realized being black was such a crucial part of my
identity in terms of the way that I was perceived and
how it would affect any line of work that I wanted to
pursue. I often find myself in situations where I am the
token black person. It can feel like this enormous
weight. I have definitely had moments when my hair
felt too big or like I needed to make myself smaller.
Smaller and easier to digest. And that’s still something
that I struggle with now, you know? But I think,
honestly, social media has changed that in a lot of
ways because in the past you could look only to
movies or TV or music or celebrities in order to feel
like you had representation. Now you can go on
Instagram and you can see a girl who looks like you
who is killing the game and expressing herself. Just
being able to see that is so affirming.
