The other day I listened to a reading of the children’s book Stars in My Skin: The Secret of the Ink by Kimberly D. Oneness, a book about identity, and afterward found myself feeling proud, happy, and hopeful about being Black.
The book wasn’t loud. It wasn’t divisive in a time where almost every conversation surrounding identity, race, culture, and history eventually becomes a conversation about power, superiority, resentment, or tribalism. Somewhere along the way, many of us have absorbed the idea that in order for one people group to stand tall, another must be lowered. As if dignity is limited. As if human value is a competition.
And yet this book did something gentler than that.
It celebrated.
There is a difference.
African American culture has undeniably given something distinct and beautiful to the world. There is a creativity, resilience, rhythm, spiritual depth, humor, innovation, and brilliance woven throughout the history of Black Americans that the world has not only witnessed, but continuously learned from, borrowed from, imitated, and admired. That influence is real. It has shaped music, language, literature, art, fashion, faith, storytelling, and culture itself.
But acknowledging beauty in a people does not require us to deny the humanity of everyone else.
That is where I find myself growing weary sometimes. Not of cultural pride. I think there is something deeply meaningful about understanding where you came from. About preserving traditions, stories, language, recipes, songs, faith, and memory. There is beauty in inheritance.
What exhausts me is when identity becomes dependent upon hierarchy. When the thinking becomes: “I can’t just love who I am. I need to believe I am superior.”
That’s when simply appreciating culture shifts into needing it to stand above someone else’s in order to feel meaningful.
When the goal is no longer remembrance, but elevation over others.
The older I get, the more I believe that every people group carries evidence of the image of God. Scripture tells us that humanity was made in His image, and because of that, whenever human beings create beauty, preserve culture, survive suffering, build families, tell stories, dance, sing, paint, write, invent, nurture, or love, they reflect something sacred back into the world.
Not perfectly.
But truly.
And history shows us that every civilization and people group has been capable of both tremendous beauty and tremendous evil. Human beings have carried both across centuries. None of us escape that reality completely.
Perhaps that is why this particular children’s book felt refreshing to me.
It approached identity through wonder rather than rivalry.
Children often do that naturally before adults interrupt them with bitterness. A child can notice differences in skin, hair, traditions, language, or family history with genuine curiosity. They can ask questions without immediately assigning superiority or inferiority. They are still discovering the world before the world teaches them suspicion.
Too often, it is adults who hand children division.
Adults who teach them who to resent.
Adults who convince them that loving their own story requires hostility toward someone else’s.
But Stars in My Skin: The Secret of the Ink felt different.
From the reading, I saw a story centered around ancestral memory, storytelling, identity, and belonging. I saw a young girl discovering something beautiful about where she came from. And what moved me most was that the story seemed to make room for pride, dignity, and cultural celebration without crushing the dignity of anyone else in the process.
That balance matters.
Especially in children’s literature.
Children do not need books that teach shame about heritage. But they also do not need books that teach arrogance disguised as empowerment. There is a way to celebrate a people honestly while still leaving room for the shared humanity of others.
That is what I believe this story accomplished.
And perhaps that is part of what good storytelling should do.
Not erase differences or flatten culture or pretend history is simple.
But remind us that heritage can be honored without turning human beings against one another.
In a world increasingly asking people, even children, to define themselves against others, there is something quietly beautiful about a story that simply says:
This is who you are.
This is where you came from.
And there is beauty in that.
If this post spoke to you…
Share it with someone who might need it, too. Whether it’s a quiet encouragement or a new way of seeing things, these reflections are meant to be passed along.
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Martina Griffin is a Catholic convert, writer, wife, and mother of four. She writes about faith, motherhood, beauty, books, and the quiet ache of transformation. A lover of popcorn, deep questions, and old classics, she shares her heart at Big Bowl of Popcorn—one post at a time. Instagram | Facebook | Email Me |
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