Status Updates From Sugar in the Raw: Voices of...

I think that’s what love is all about; when you realize that someone cares about you and you are worthy of their love, then you start to take care of yourself a little better.

[...] I feel lucky that if all I had was myself, that would be enough.

My mother stopped doing cocaine a couple of years ago, although she still gets high. She’s been off alcohol for thirty-seven days. I used to worry about her, but I don’t anymore because I can’t. It’ll kill me if I worry as much as it takes.

Of course at this age everyone is talking about how important it is to be pretty and thin, but I’ve always thought, How can you not like someone because they don’t look good? I find that once I start to like someone, they automatically become beautiful to me. It is completely dependent on the person. There are a lot of conventionally beautiful people out there who have extremely repellent behavior.

[...] I don’t know why everyone always be looking at black girls getting pregnant and going on welfare, because it’s not just black girls. Everybody makes bad choices and everybody falls into bad situations.

I’m not sayin’ it’s all about skin color either. It’s just that being black is about our ability to express ourselves and the way we express ourselves and then our history in America.

What matters is what’s inside, or rather, how you feel about yourself inside. Because you can have a lot of good inside you, but if you don’t feel good about it, then it is lost.

If you only spend time with people who are like you, how can you ever learn anything?

The reason I have chosen a genre of writing that is not exclusively my own voice is because I love words and do not presume to harbor the best ones in my mind and life alone.

Sugar in the Raw is a nonfiction profile of young black girls in America between the ages of eleven and twenty years old. I traveled to approximately twelve different cities nationwide—a few of them twice—and interviewed over fifty girls. I made a sincere effort to include as wide a variety as possible in terms of class representation and regional location.

Wow. These girls are incredible. So wise and so strong and just beautifully spoken. I’m lucky to have role models like these at 22.