When looking at the issues facing Black America, most immediately point out the challenges facing young black males. Least educated. High school dropouts. Absent fathers. Gang bangers. Out-of-control behavior. Drug use. Gun violence. Incarceration. Short life expectancy. Death.
Schools and programs across the country are geared towards saving young black males from a life of non-productivity and molding them into upstanding, law-abiding citizens, pillars of the community and ever loyal to their wives and children.
What's interesting is the conversation rarely addresses the challenges of young black females. At worst, a black female teen becomes pregnant and has a baby out-of-wedlock but that isn't seen as too bad.
According to Monique Morris, senior researcher with The National Council on Crime and Delinquency, black girls are slipping almost unnoticed into the same categories of dysfunction as their male counterparts.
"There’s no single factor that can be held responsible, but there are compounding issues of education, a history of drug, alcohol, physical, emotional and sexual abuse among females in general," said Morris in an interview with FCN Publishing.
Playwright/actor/poet Ashley Wilkerson, who is also a documentary filmmaker, also reveals there is more going on with young black girls than meets the eye in her powerful one-woman show Freckle In My Eye.
Wonderfully directed by Harold Steward, Performing Arts Coordinator at the South Dallas Cultural Center, Wilkerson utilizes masterful stage techniques throughout the play to tell her story, including one in which she sits on a wooden block and stares directly into the eyes of audience members who are clearly uncomfortable with the journey she is taking them on.
In the story, we find She-see Jones, a young black woman living on Texas death row writing her memoir as she awaits execution. As a child we discover that She-see had potential,but as too often happens, something went tragically wrong.
"I was placed in talented and gifted classes at 7. That's God's number. 7. I also learned about pornography when I was 7. I seent a naked black woman being held up by a group of men. And as she moaned and screamed from the television, the niggas in the house just laughed. That was my first lesson of black womanhood."
Telling her-story from that point on is a diverse collection of colorful characters who run the gamut of innocent to manipulative, hilarious to downright sinister.
LisaBeckyKellyPierce is one of these characters, the one seen most often in the play who inhabits She-see whenever she wants to avoid the dark, ugly realities of life. Wilkerson's creation and portrayal of this character is simply delightful and reminds us what childhood should look like. Full of wonder and awe at the world, knowing you will be protected by those who love you.
LisaBeckyKellyPierce is there when She-see starts her period, is violently raped, and subsequently beaten by her mother for supposedly provoking the act. Wilkerson's depiction of this scene was painful to watch.
Unfortunately, She-see finds herself pregnant. "I had my first child when I was 12. People said it looked like I had swallowed a watermelon." After She-see has the baby and finds herself alone and isolated, she is ridiculed by the neighborhood women who basically equate her status as a modern day Hester Prynne, with her baby serving as her scarlet letter.
Madam CJ enters the picture to help the girl. Or so we think. In order to maintain her household, Madam CJ forces She-see to work as a child prostitute to feed herself and her baby.
In this mostly sad tale, there are several funny scenes including one where She-see finds herself at a children's home for 8 months. Alternating between herself and the caseworker who believes She-see is crazy, Wilkerson plays this scene with such perfect comedic timing that for a small moment you get a reprieve from the darkness that is She-see's life.
Moving from the group home and having more children, working as an adult prostitute, and co-habitating with "6 other ho's and my pimp New York," She-see's life has reached the point of no return and she knows it. Statements like "have you ever had a rat look at you like you're the one who's nasty" makes one feel immediate empathy for her.
In the final moments of the play, we discover why She-see is on death row as she recollects her arrest and trial, effectively staged through the use of taped voice-overs of news shows with condescending anchors and reporters.
She-see takes exception to a reporter's comment that she fits the profile of a criminal. "They say I walk like a criminal. I walk this way cause I never had a chance to heal", a reference to her childhood rape which was never mentioned during her trial.
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