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Flip the Script: Making Conscious Choices
Day Thirty-nine
Making conscious choices
“Growing up, I remember watching a black national news anchor, Carol Simpson. I thought, I could be like her. It shows the power of representation.” Sheinelle Jones, Executive producer of stories we tell: the fertility secret, a documentary about the particular challenges affecting women of color.
When my daughters were younger, I used to point out things in films to talk about communication between women and men. I would say, “This is where she could tell him what she is thinking. She is getting on the train without communicating why she is leaving!” I would point out women using their voices or not using their voices. I would point out abuse and gas lighting and teach them how to stand up for themselves and how to say no.
Media is something I reference in writing blogs, books, writing programs and The Incubator. I use the impact of stories to demonstrate a thought, a feeling, a point I want to make.
The title of my first story in Conscious Choices: An Evolutionary Woman’s Guide to Life showed the impact of watching Mister Rogers on television with my young daughters and hearing him tell me, and the rest of the audience, that he loved me “just the way you are.” Mister Rogers helped me identify how unloved I felt and the pain of…
