ms. hill

Excerpt from Essence Magazine
February 2006

"Essence: I’m interested in what you expressed as the need to be a whole woman. I find that for many Black women, it’s a struggle to be accepted in a society that seems to be incapable of making space for our intelligence, beauty and strength. It’s almost expressed as a liability. Like you’ll never find happiness because you’re too dope.

Hill: It’s really about the Black woman falling in love with her own image of beauty. I know that I’ve been in a fight to love myself and experience reciprocity in a relationship. I thought that a perfectly reciprocal relationship was an impossibility. That’s that “Black woman is the mule of the world” thing. It says she can’t get what she deserves, no matter how dope she is. And, you know, you have to go through the fear. You do have to do something with the insecurity, ghosts and demons that have been programmed in us for centuries. You have to master the voices, all the insecure and inadequate men who put garbage in a woman’s mind, soul, spirit and psyche just so they can use her. You’ve got to break free of that crap. I didn’t see many of the women who came before me fight that war successfully. And when you don’t see it, you don’t know if it can be done. But that’s what faith is for."