Thank You: An Open Letter to Sharon G. Flake

Dear Ms. Sharon G. Flake,

A couple weeks ago, as I was gearing up to walk across the stage to receive my degree from the University of Pennsylvania, I was frantically running around with some last minute errands. In my frenzy, I was at the Penn Bookstore trying to sell some unwanted books and lighten the load that would have to be carried all the way back to Brooklyn with me after move-out. While walking out of the bookstore, I glanced over the table and saw your book "The Skin I'm In" perched neatly on a table with other childhood classics. This made me stop dead in my tracks. This book, introduced to me as a timid ten year-old girl, suddenly very cautious of who she was in this world, opened my eyes to something that would be so important in my years as an emerging adolescent and future adulthood: self-love. I remember not being able to put the book down, diving deep into the pages and walking in the footsteps of Maleeka Madison, her pain mimicking mine. I never realized the importance of books like this while growing up, and never noticed the importance of representation across literature in general. Yet, I was that child who LOVED Roger and Hammerstein's version of "Cinderella"and could recite it word for word (songs included). This was the moment I realized why it all matters. 

Ms. Flake, you taught me the power of self-preservation, long before I would come across Audre Lorde in my college years. As a young child, I was not plagued so heavily with low self-esteem because I knew, to some extent, there were people who looked like me and loved exactly who they were, including how they looked. I never sought extreme measures to alter who I was or to embrace something that was not me. Although I still struggled to be fully confident in who I was, and to find the kind of self-discovery that warrants that confidence, your books help lightened that load, and brighten my road. I became a better writer (I have a poem called "Chocolate Coated Girl" that I wrote in middle school, the rest is history), a scholar, and a fierce advocate for self-love. Although the individual impact you have made on me might seem small, you have freed me from a host of personal dismay, and welcomed me to a world of love via Black Girl Magic. I am eternally grateful for the work you continue to do that uplift little ten year old girls like me to become audacious black women who love themselves fiercely and unapologetically. Thank you. That moment in the bookstore, just hours away from graduation, was when everything came full circle for me. It was a moment where the current and past me were presently looking at each other, your book in hand and heart, ready to conquer the world set before us, with love and compassion. 

So, with love and unending gratitude, I say thank you. 

Sincerely,

Shakele Seaton