Community Spotlight: Girl RPRSNTD
Photo courtesy of Girl RPRSNTD
When I heard about the work of Girl RPRSNTD, I knew I needed to learn more about the amazing young women who created it. Nicole Mateo and Amber Rahman are the two founders of GRL RPRSNTD, a bookclub and online platform that highlights stories of diverse and historically underrepresented perspectives. The passion, determination, and heart that went into creating Girl RPRSNTD is so evident, and it’s an honor to share this interview with our Womaze community.
What would you say is your mission with Girl RPRSNTD?
We want to create book clubs in high schools and communities across the country. We hope to bring teen girls together to discuss and increase awareness so that these girls can see themselves portrayed in the books. We want these young women to see themselves as the main focus, instead of being the character on the sidelines. We hope that the online platform provides accessible pdf versions of the books, live streams and discussions with authors and other book club members, a book subscription box, and reflections on the books. Reading is such a raw and personal experience that provides the capacity for people to engage with each other, with themselves, and the world.
As we’ve been jolted awake to the overwhelming injustices of our world, systems of oppression that traffic within and across the eight social identifiers of race, religion, socio-economic status, ability, family structure, sexual orientation, gender, and age, we’ve looked for words to guide me when my own have failed. We often reference Zadie Smith’s brilliant observation: “You can’t fight for a freedom you’ve forgotten how to identify.” Reading is our way of attempting to identify what true freedom is, and it is through the revolutionary texts of James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Zadie Smith, Arundhati Roy, and many many more that we have been able to regain a sense of hope. Hope that one day we will have justice. There are real, tangible effects on those who are ignored, oppressed, marginalized in our society. We need to highlight those voices: silence is deadly. Our stories matter too.
What led to the creation of Girl RPRSNTD?
Arundhati Roy writes, “There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” To us, this means that it is our responsibility to use our privilege to decenter whiteness and bring marginalized voices to the center. Over the past year, Amber has been working as a Co-Head of the Cultural Awareness for Everyone (CAFE) Club at her school to create a book club to read texts of minority authors and discuss their relevance in our society. She wanted to create a space to amplify the voices of the silenced. We need to read about the construct of race to contextualize the systems of institutionalized racism that have tangible impacts on individuals. As the founder of TYWLS East Harlem’s very first book club, LIT Club, pun intended, Nicole does much of the same work Amber at CAFE Club does. All members vote on a selection of books Nicole curates, which are either made by people like us or made by them. And now, we have the honor of bringing the power of reading underrepresented voices to high-schoolers across the country. Representation is essential for teens to be exposed to in literature because so often our curriculums lack this very important value. By creating a space to celebrate stories, struggles, and messages of the underrepresented, we are taking a step towards decolonizing the ideology that controls our western education systems. Transformative perspective has the immense power of shaping our perceptions which will impact every aspect of our lives.
We are going to create a space to amplify the voices of the silenced.
We are GIRL RPRSNTD.
This question is for Damaris Cortorreal, a member of Girl RPRSNTD. What was it about Girl RPRSNTD that made you want to be a part of it?
I knew from the moment I heard about Nicole and Amber's project that they would make a real difference. Transitioning from a co-ed school to an all-girls one was a truly different yet essential experience. I personally learned the values of sisterhood and what it meant to be apart of a community that reflected on all aspects that made a person, not just from the invaluable perspective we showcase to others.
Often times students will sit down in school and automatically disconnect with the material because of the lack of representation in what they are learning. Being able to personally relate to a topic whether through physical aspects or emotionally is one of the main reasons for the lack of drive we see today. When Nicole and Amber created Girl RPRSNTD, they want to reflect that sincere love for knowledge and books to combine them with the values we truly care about as everyday humans. I felt it crucial to be able to have that perspective in my life and not to set limits on my learning. I want to read about more women, I want to read more about people of color, I want to see more of myself in the things I love. Girl RPRSNTD would make that same desire I had, granted and accessible to many other children and people across all communities. The platform bashes the neglect of representation in society and provides a rise in being comfortable with your true authentic self. I enjoy the privilege of taking a part of this revolution.
What would you say is the biggest lesson you've learned while creating Girl RPRSNTD?
We have realized the urgency and necessity of decolonizing our education systems. Our English and History curriculums actively uphold white hegemony by deeming certain books worthy of studying, calling certain books “classics” and others “diverse” books, by omitting the stories of the marginalized. We must recognize that to ignore history, to obscure history, to recount one history over another is a function of white supremacy. Injustice thrives when we have an illusion of equality, an amnesia towards the visceral racial hierarchy of our present. So when we create the space to unveil our collective amnesia, we can better contextualize present injustices. There is an urgency for students to see themselves in the books they are reading, and it is so important for people to read perspectives that highlight experiences different from their own as well.
For Amber, I have realized that as a person of color in a predominantly white institution, with a majority white student population, and predominantly white faculty and administration, I don’t see myself in my school’s curriculums. We are reading texts by white, male authors, and even if we read the texts of writers of color, the teachers are not fully equipped to teach about the experiences of marginalized communities.
And beyond the urgency of centering our stories, Nicole and I have realized how our project can be a vehicle to examine other aspects? Of injustice. There is the issue of accessibility to books.
It’s been five years since Barnes and Noble closed its only location in the Bronx, the borough I’m from. Books play a vital role in a child's development, and it doesn’t stop there, it continues to benefit them onto their teen and adult lives, so the Bronx losing its access to books makes it so that the kids in these neighborhoods don’t have intellectual accessibility. The closing of this general bookstore chain plays a key factor in the literacy levels of the residents in this borough and in the education divide we continue to experience across the five boroughs.
In how many communities do people have access to books written by minority authors about people of color? How do the books in school libraries reflect the student populations? In how many communities are white teachers not equipped with the tools to be anti-racist in their classrooms? How do teachers create environments for students to see themselves, or are some students not seen by their teachers? What standards are in place to ensure that students are reading a diversity of texts?
And one of our main goals of creating these book clubs is to create a space for dialogue and discussion about representation, justice, systemic inequity, and more. We need to create a space to imagine what solutions can look like, what a more equitable world can look like. And in starting discussions and dialoguing across differences, we can start a conversation that is bigger than the text itself.
What would you say to someone who is eager to make a difference in this world but doesn’t know where to start?
Start small! Find people who believe in the work you’re doing and work together. Working locally is just as impactful as the work big organizations are doing today. Act local, think global! Amber and I found each other because we each believed in the work we were doing individually and look at where we are today! So, don’t be discouraged by starting small. You can have a huge impact on those in your life and from there it can expand. Think about what’ll happen if you don’t! If not you, who else? If not now, when?
What is giving you hope right now?
The youth of today have the power. There have been so many impactful movements started by kids and teens just like us. We have stopped being complacent and we’re advocating for the things we believe in. These movements and books which highlight the way we feel makes today’s world less isolating and have encouraged us to do more. Reading the texts of revolutionary writers of color from our past and present have the transformative power of making us feel less alone. Seeing ourselves in the books we read makes us feel empowered to create change in our communities. Kids like us have been setting the precedent and initiating the work we so desperately need today.
Every day on Womaze, we send out daily push motivations which are daily messages of love and support. What’s one message you think the world needs to hear right now?
Your story matters. Seriously, that’s it. Don’t let the world surrounding you confine you, your story matters too. Our stories matter too!!
What are you most excited about when it comes to the future of Girl RPRSNTD?
We have lots of plans for Girl RPRSNTD. One of the things we’re most looking forward to is starting these book clubs in communities across the country and encouraging the conversations that wouldn’t have otherwise occurred. Creating these safe spaces is an act of resistance and it is so powerful to create a space for that. We hope to see RPRSNTD book clubs all across the country, with people engaging with different perspectives and encouraging those to become comfortable with what isn’t considered typical today.
Thank you to Nicole, Amber, and all of the members of Girl RPRSNTD for the incredible work you’re doing in this world. We hope our Womaze community is just as inspired by you as we are!