
The group of creatives unpacked their thoughts on vulnerability and how they let go of others’ exceptions while speaking with moderator Dr. Raquel C. Martin PHD at the 2024 Black Love Summit in Los Angeles on Saturday, October 12. Though they all work in different creative fields, the panelists all agreed that being their truest selves has been instrumental to their personal and professional success. Crawford, a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model and former host of MTV’s “Catfish,” stressed that she didn’t find success in her career until she learned to be as honest as possible.
“[Family] keep you humble, but they also remind you of how special you are and what you have is unique,” Crawford shared. “I feel like it’s been a blessing to be able to build a career off of just being myself. I’ve been able to build a brand off of that, so I’ve never had to be anybody else. When I tried that in the beginning, in my pageant days, you try to fit the mold of what you think a beauty queen is supposed to be like. It wasn’t working for me.”
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For Onuorah, whose latest film is Megan Thee Stallion’s new Prime Video documentary “Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Words,” her path to vulnerability was particularly personal. The director, who won an Emmy for her work on Prime’s “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” opened up about her identity as a Black queer woman and how she had to overcome judgements from the Black church to be her truest self. The path wasn’t an easy one for Onuorah, who revealed that she is developing a new film about her journey.
“I was working on one particular project that had to do with trauma in the Black church,” Onuorah said. “I grew up in Black church. My grandfather was a pastor, my grandmother’s a first lady, so very churchy growing up in New York. I wanted to do a passion project about my experience watching people who had been pained in the Black church because I’ve only heard it from the perspective of people either hate the church or they love it, but I felt like I was in the middle.”
“I’m used to pointing the lens away from me and being able to show my emotions through other people and my work. The studio was like, ‘Well, we need an anchor for this movie to drive it and it should be you. This is your story.’ And I was like, ‘what?’ I didn’t realize how much pain it had caused me. I had been fighting through it, I’ve been championing other people, but I hadn’t been a champion for myself. I put my pain to the side to address other things and I realized that was actually the way I was coping, not healing, but just coping. I had to reopen that wound. I think that made me very vulnerable because in opening that up, you think the world has grown so much. There’s so many different types of people politically, but we still have a long way to go.”
Greene, the creator of the immensely popular Instagram platform “We The Urban,” didn’t reveal his true self for years. The content creator chose to remain anonymous while growing the platform, letting the encouraging words he posted everyday speak for themselves. He shared that he finally decided to reveal himself to the world after going through a bad breakup and writing a book, entitled “Not Sure Who Needs to Hear This, But…,” about self-love and uplift.
“I feel like I’ve been in the shadows for so long and a huge part of that was really strategic,” Greene explained. “I feel like social media has convinced us that we all need to be famous or an entertainer, and I feel like that does not come naturally to everybody and that is okay. Also social media now, I think that’s why we don’t see a lot of people posting on their feeds because back in the day — the Tumblr days — it used to feel like community. Now when you post, it just feels like you’re being stared at and judged.”
“There’s this fear of being perceived that I’ve had. Writing this book for the past three years, I’ve been thinking about this month, specifically, knowing that I’d have to show my face and push through that fear,” he added, referencing his book that is now available to buy on Amazon. “The more that I do that, the more that I acknowledge fear and hear it, but not listen to it and just do it anyway. I find that afterwards, I’m like, ‘That was actually not that bad. Can we do it again?’”
“I also think there’s something really important about seeing somebody that looks like me, that comes from the same walk of life as me, because we don’t get to sit in these seats a lot. I think there’s something powerful about people seeing that this kid from the South, from humble beginnings, is the one that’s actually inspiring them. It feels good to be seen.”
Ultimately, Crawford, Onuorah, and Greene want others to learn from their experiences. The key to being your happiest, most fulfilled self is shedding others expectations and tapping into your vulnerability. Being honest and transparent about who you are, who you love, what makes you happy, and what you will and won’t tolerate makes for a more peaceful and productive life.
“I think when it comes to any type of public image or persona that you’re putting out there, not everyone’s going to like it,” Crawford said. “I actually had an ex-boyfriend one time who told me, ‘People don’t like what they don’t understand.’ Some people may not understand my humor, my confidence, my compassion, my anything, my vulnerability, and if they don’t like it, that’s okay. There are other places for you. My mom always says, ‘No one is you and that is your power.’ You have to know that what you have is special.”
“My motto is I don’t need everyone to like me,” Greene added. “I just want to make sure the people that do feel fed and are okay and feel loved. More people can join if they like, but if not, then that is just none of my business. I just want to empower people to keep that creative endurance. And even if you don’t feel like it, do it. Even if there is fear present, act.”
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