Solange Pens Heartfelt Letter to Fellow Carefree Black Girl Amandla Stenberg

Solange just celebrated the Amandla Stenberg in the most brilliant way.

In a Facebook post and open letter, the singer wrote her appreciation for the 17- year-old, whose energy moves at a frequency worth celebrating. 

“There’s a secret language between Black girls destined to move mountains and cross rivers when the world sometimes tells you to belong to the valleys that surround you,” she began. 

You learn it very young, and it has no words, but you hear it and see it all around you. You sense it when you walk into rooms, your hair elevated with every exalted coil, your sway a little too swift, and your shoulders a little too proud. You feel it like a rhythm you can’t shake if you even dared to quiet the sounds around you. Amandla knows it all too well, “I think that when you’re a black girl and you grow up you internalize all these messages. Everywhere you look that tell you that you shouldn’t accept your hair, or your natural features, or that you shouldn’t have a voice, or that you aren’t smart. In terms of my evolution I think those internalized messages built up in my mind until I was given the tools to recognize the situation. And understand that no, there’s nothing wrong with me, these are just that these are just messages that we’re fed. I feel like the best way to deal with that has been just to be myself and connect with all these other black girls who are awakening and realizing that they’ve been trying to conform; and the only way to fight that is to be themselves on the most genuine level. “

So here we are, connecting as non conforming black gals. Connecting as girls who recognize the borders that have been built around us, but tearing them down while coloring outside every line. Connecting as lovers of wearing the color sienna orange. Connecting as two chicks exhausted by talking about our hair, although we of course know, it’s bad ass. Connecting as humans who are both trying to figure out the mathematics of composer Steve Reich’s – “Violin Phase “. Connecting as two descendants of powerful Queens, who roamed the journey before us, and we hold the most high. 

I may not have felt prepared, but I sure as hell felt inspired, deeply moved by the honesty shared between us, and ready to take on the world sprinkling black girl magic in every crevice of the universe.

-Solange

Come soon

We live for moments that celebrate sisterhood, so thank you Solange and thank you Amandla—may your #BlackGirlMagic forever marvel through the universe!