How You Can Give The Gift Of Healing And Acceptance To A Black Girl On National Letter Writing Day

MN: What did you hope to accomplish when you put out the call for the original twelve letters?

Tamara: I had noticed when traveling for my book, The Sisters Are Alright, my first book, that sometimes when I was in rooms with Black women and we were talking about, being Black and being female, that when women talked about ourselves, we talked about all the ways we were all right. And all the ways that we defy stereotypes of Black women, but sometimes when the conversations turned to younger Black women and turned to Black girls, suddenly, the tone was different. Suddenly, you know, some of those stereotypes seemed to be coming into play. So, you know, Black women as a whole aren’t say, promiscuous, but these young women they’re just too free with their bodies. You know, Black women as a whole aren’t Sapphire or too loud, but these girls… Suddenly, it became something different.