Just A Girl With Spirit's Reviews > Finding Me

This has got to be my favorite read of the year. I loved Viola Davis before, but now I’m IN love with her. The immense respect and admiration I have for her is deep. The things she endured as a kid, teen, woman—period. I can honestly say that I’ve never experienced. I’ve never missed a meal for days. I’ve never had to lie in my own urine and go to school the next day reeking. I’ve never had to fight with huge rats over my bed & pillow. I’ve never witness my father beat my mom within an inch of her life and I’ve never experienced racism on the level that Viola has for being too dark. What she went through for being dark skinned, what her mom went through as a child..absolutely horrific.

“Memories are immortal. They’re deathless and precise. They have the power of giving you joy and perspective in hard times. Or, they can strangle you. Define you in a way that’s based more in other people’s tucked-up perceptions than truth.”

The colorism she experienced in the acting world and how they tried to “mold and shape” her into the perfect “white” actor. I love how she explained what Shonda Rhimes did for her in creating HTGAWM role for her and the healing that came from that. “Annalise Keating released in me the obstacles blocking me from realizing my worth and power as a woman.”

“As Black women, we are complicated. We are feminine. We are sexual. We are beautiful. We’re pretty. There are people out there who desire us. We are deserving. So that’s why I’m very aware of what my presence means. And that’s why I’m also aware of why I need to be emotionally healthy. Because that’s a lot of responsibility. Because you’re coming up against a four-hundred-year-old narrative.”

How to Get Away with Murder was where my radical transformation took place. In the course of playing Annalise, I understood that I was no longer and never was that ugly Black nigga. The role liberated me. I said to myself: All I’ve got is me. And that is enough.