Viola Davis is the queen of inspirational award acceptance speeches. Naturally, she would be that and even more for her own daughter, Genesis.
If you follow Davis' Instagram page, you know the acting legend sprinkles Genesis throughout, and also that it's the cutest thing in the history of cuteness.
At the Los Angeles launch of Vaseline’s Cocoa Radiant Body Butter, Davis spoke with Yahoo! News about how she instills black pride in her daughter no matter what.
We all know that kids love to dress up as popular characters, which can foster a complicated conversation around representation and Eurocentric beauty standards.
Of course kids want to dress up as a popular Disney princess or superheroes, and Davis welcomes her daughter's enthusiasm, but with one edit: she can't wear the straight-laced wig. It's Genesis' own natural afro or nothing.
“I say, ‘You gotta wear your hair exactly the way it is. You can be Wonder Woman, but you gotta be Wonder Woman with your hair. You can be Elsa, but you gotta be Elsa with your hair,’” said the Oscar winning actress.
“I really push it. I push it,” she added.
Davis not only instills that positive message of self-love in her daughter through costume, but also by making sure to stock her library with books like I Love My Cotton Candy Hair and I Like Myself!
Davis feels that self-love leads to self-confidence, which leads to success.
“You can do all of that stuff if you start with the palette of loving who you are,” said Davis.
Davis knows how important the identity positive reinforcement is, especially since she didn't have that drilled into her when she was growing up. As a child, she said, she was never happy with her body or hair, but grew up "wanting someone’s everything.”
“If someone had told me that [I was enough] just time and time again … oh, my God! I would’ve had a completely different childhood. And my childhood was good, even with all the pain and poverty. But it would’ve been even better,” she said.
What a treasure. Go, Viola Davis, go!
