Dark Girls Summary

The documentary that I viewed was called Dark Girls (Directors: Bill Duke & D. Channsin Berry, 2011). The focus was based on colorism in the African- American community and how it has impacted young girls and women. The directors provided a platform that explored the issue starting with the history of African- American culture down to the aspect of how we would need to begin to heal and overcome this prejudice.
I chose this particular documentary because I am African-American and have personally experienced this issue with myself, my sisters and my daughter. Currently in the African-American community you see that there is a lot of unrest. We see this playing out in the media with the violence that is happening and question how to bring awareness to the issues and to make this better. I feel that this ties heavily to our self-worth and the love and respect that we must have and demand amongst ourselves first.
The directors used several different techniques in creating this documentary. Archival footage was used several times throughout the documentary when discussing the history of African-Americans. There were areas were voice-over was used and the main technique was direct interviews. The entire

In the beginning they laid a solid foundation of how color played a large part in African-American history back to the days of slavery. Giving that history is critical to understanding how colorism started within the culture. Continuing on, the documentary build a story line of the impact in society to how the issue is dealt with within the family structure. They spoke to men on their views of dark women and women on their views of dark men. One of the interesting segments was the global impact of colorism. The director’s ability to show examples of colorism in the Korean and Thai culture shed an additional perspective on the