Defying Media Messages About Girls of Color, a Mentor Helps Build Self-Worth

By her own admission, La’Keisha Gray-Sewell was a bit of a handful growing up.

“I was the kid who was always fighting, who was always in trouble,” she says. “I was misdirected for such a long time, I didn’t understand what it meant to have concern for someone else’s well-being.”

[pullquote]“This wealth of humanity is erased every day in the media”: Girls Like Me mentors girls to build self-worth[/pullquote]

Today, this former “smart, but ‘bad’ girl” is a writer, social media strategist, media critic—and mentor to dozens of Chicago-area girls.

Sewell, a south side native, is the founder of Girls Like Me Project, Inc., a nonprofit that helps urban girls of color examine the various cultural, environmental and media messages that can influence their development.

The seeds for the organization were planted when Sewell was volunteering in her son’s fourth grade classroom.

“I noticed the girls in my son’s class were very aggressive and engaged in very cliquish behavior,” she says. “They were picking on people, fighting the boys and even behaving in a sexual manner with boys in the class.”

Seeing something of her former self in these young women, Sewell launched a weekly ‘ladies’ lunch’ at the school. Every Wednesday, she would sit with the girls and talk about self-empowerment and self-esteem. As the conversations deepened, Sewell saw a need for increased engagement with not only these individuals, but with all urban girls.

“A lot of the girls were dealing with physical violence in their homes. Many were displaced. I started to think, ‘What can I do next week to make this better?’”

GLMPI became a nonprofit in 2012 serving girls ages 11 through 18, though some of the organization’s events are open to young women up to age 24. GLMPI runs media literacy programing in schools and hosts events where students can interact with professional women. The program has reached 700 girls to date.

One of GLMPI’s signature events is its Chicago Day of the Girl celebration. The event, held every October 11, honors the International Day of the Girl Child, a worldwide movement to raise awareness about gender inequality around the world. That global connection is important to Gray-Sewell.

“I want our young ladies to understand that there are other girls out there facing tough challenges, and to know that if they lifted their voices they could bring about change for themselves and raise awareness for issues facing all girls.”

“Be a model where you stand. You have to see beyond yourself, beyond your own household, your own life, your own family,” she says. “We have to see every child as our own child and act accordingly.”

Sewell hopes that positive interactions with mentors and working to advocate for girls around the world will help the young women in her program develop the self-esteem needed to counteract negative messages from the media.

“Unfortunately, our beauty, our intelligence and everything we know we have—this wealth of humanity—is erased every day in the media,” she says.

Especially critical of media that seeks to define black girls as “either violent or hypersexual,” Gray-Sewell believes that all adults are responsible for helping young women combat those stereotypes.

“Be a model where you stand. You have to see beyond yourself, beyond your own household, your own life, your own family,” she says. “We have to see every child as our own child and act accordingly.”