Coffee Colored Children
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
This lyrical, unsettling film conveys the experience of children of mixed racial heritage. Suffering the aggression of racial harassment, a young girl and her brother attempt to wash their skin white with scouring powder. Starkly emotional and visually compelling, this semi-autobiographical testimony to the profound internalized effects of racism and the struggle for self-definition and pride is a powerful catalyst for discussion.
“Raw and raptly personal, an elegiac exploration of Black childhood’s enforced pains.”
John Lyttle Philadelphia City Limits
“Onwurah’s award-winning first film is a terrifying heartbreaker.”
Ellen Cohn Village Voice
Citation
Main credits
Onwurah, Ngozi A. (film director)
Onwurah, Ngozi A. (film producer)
Onwurah, Ngozi A. (editor of moving image work)
Onwurah, Ngozi A. (screenwriter)
Onwurah, Simon K. (film producer)
Onwurah, Simon K. (photographer)
McKay, Annette (actor)
McKay, Haley (actor)
McKay, Michael (actor)
Onwurah, Madge (actor)
Other credits
Cameras, Michael Lunig, Simon K. Onwurah; sound, Richard Gray.
Distributor subjects
Black Diaspora, Immigration and Exile, Psychology, RacismKeywords
WEBVTT
X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=LOCAL:00:00:00.000,MPEGTS:0
00:09.760 --> 00:14.765
[birds chirping]
00:15.599 --> 00:18.810
♪\"Melting
Pot\" by Blue Mink♪
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-[woman VO] Our
childhood memories are blurred,
03:17.155 --> 03:18.281
murky.
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Why did the big boys throw
dog shit on our front door?
03:22.202 --> 03:25.997
Why Auntie [inaudible] give me
black dolls at Christmas instead
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of a tiny [inaudible]?
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I hated that doll.
03:29.960 --> 03:34.881
But not as much as I
hated my own reflection.
04:04.744 --> 04:06.288
-[children] ♪Girls and boys,
come out to play♪
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♪The moon
does shine as bright as day♪
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♪Leave your supper
and leave your sleep♪
04:10.250 --> 04:12.502
♪Come to your
play fellows in the streets♪
04:12.502 --> 04:14.337
♪Come to your playfellows
in the streets...♪
04:14.337 --> 04:16.631
-[woman VO] She would never
let us out to clean it up.
04:16.631 --> 04:18.967
Instead, we would
watch as our mother,
04:18.967 --> 04:22.137
hands in rubber
gloves, face contorted,
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trying not to smell
anything, trying not to be sick,
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washed the dog
poo off the door...
04:30.270 --> 04:33.190
all the time
knowing it was our fault,
04:33.190 --> 04:36.193
because the mothers with nice
white children never had to
04:36.193 --> 04:39.362
clean dog poo off
their front doors.
04:43.700 --> 04:46.828
I don\'t think our mother ever
knew the dirty secrets that went
04:46.828 --> 04:49.456
on behind our bedroom door.
04:49.456 --> 04:51.708
Inside our brains,
the three of us,
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each alone.
04:53.835 --> 04:55.670
-[children] ♪Bye, baby Bunting♪
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♪Daddy\'s gone a-hunting♪
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♪Bye, baby Bunting♪
04:59.633 --> 05:03.011
♪Cry, baby Bunting♪
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-[woman VO] We were so strange,
the only black children in the
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area.
05:07.933 --> 05:09.434
The first.
05:09.434 --> 05:13.271
We had no father
and a white mother.
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It took more explaining than
a child\'s mind could manage.
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[school bell rings]
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-[man VO] They used us for tag.
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They thought they
could catch it: blackness.
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If you\'d touch
us, you\'d go black.
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Not on your face,
somewhere even worse.
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-[child] I don\'t like coloring
me-- me face brown because--
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because when I grow up,
I\'m gonna have a white face.
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-[man VO] In drawing classes,
the teacher tried to make me
05:48.473 --> 05:51.726
color my face in
with a brown crayon.
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I couldn\'t.
05:54.479 --> 05:58.149
I was nearly
14-years-old before I could.
05:58.149 --> 06:01.820
And even then, it
was without any pride.
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-[woman VO] When I was a child,
I wanted to be a princess.
06:12.747 --> 06:15.584
But I expected to be white.
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I could just see their
faces as, like Wonder Woman,
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I would spin
\'round and \'round...
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and reveal the real me: white.
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It never worked.
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I couldn\'t understand
what I was doing wrong.
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-[child VO] [inaudible]
in my class who are brown.
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♪gentle music box♪
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When I grow up,
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I wanna be a princess.
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\'Cause then, they won\'t
call us names if I\'m white.
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-[woman VO] I lost my childhood
in a blur of ache and self-hate.
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-[children VO]
♪Baa baa, black sheep,
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have you any
wool?♪
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♪Yes, sir, yes, sir♪
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♪Three bags full♪
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♪One for the
master, one for the dame♪
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♪And one for the little
boy who lives down the lane♪
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-[child VO]
♪Eenie meanie minie mo♪
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♪Catch a nigger by the toe♪
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♪If it screams, let it go♪
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♪Eenie meanie minie mo♪
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[laughs]
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♪Eenie meenie minie mo♪
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♪Catch a nigger by the toe♪
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♪If it screams, let it go♪
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♪Eenie meanie minie toe!♪
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-[children]
♪Eenie meenieminie mo♪
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♪Catch a nigger by the toe♪
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♪If it screams, let it go♪
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♪Eenie meanie minie mo!♪
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[laughter]
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-[man VO] There was this white
woman with three black kids.
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No one believed
she was our mother.
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And sometimes, just sometimes,
I thought maybe she wasn\'t.
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-[child VO] How come you\'re
brown when you\'ve got a white
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ma?
08:34.806 --> 08:39.018
-[man VO] I used to scrub and
scrub to make my skin go white.
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Make the black go away.
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It was the only way I could
think of to make her become my
08:46.860 --> 08:51.865
mother.
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Sometimes, I
scrubbed \'til I bled.
08:58.496 --> 09:01.041
-[child VO] I
haven\'t got a brown face.
09:01.041 --> 09:05.044
[scrubbing]
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-[woman VO] The dresses and
the makeup got more ridiculous.
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The
self-mutilation, more precise.
09:35.992 --> 09:40.997
-[child VO] When I grow
up, I wanna be white.
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-[woman VO] [inaudible]--
09:42.832 --> 09:43.917
-[child VO] White.
09:43.917 --> 09:44.918
-[woman VO] [inaudible]--
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-[child VO] White.
09:45.627 --> 09:47.212
-[woman VO] And a
child\'s coffee-colored skin--
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-[child VO]
♪Happy birthday to you♪
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♪You was born in some poo♪
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-[woman VO] If it
worked for Wonder Woman,
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why wouldn\'t it work for me?
09:55.011 --> 09:57.514
-[child VO] She is my mum?
09:57.514 --> 09:59.682
She is mum?!
09:59.682 --> 10:01.976
She is my mum?!
10:01.976 --> 10:04.395
-[child VO] When I grow
up, I wanna be white.
10:04.395 --> 10:05.146
-[woman VO] White.
10:05.146 --> 10:05.855
-[man VO] Go white.
10:05.855 --> 10:06.523
-[woman VO] White.
10:06.523 --> 10:07.232
White.
10:07.232 --> 10:07.857
-[man VO] White.
10:07.857 --> 10:11.319
-[woman VO] White.
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But even magic wouldn\'t work.
10:18.409 --> 10:21.788
Slowly realizing this was
how it was going to be--
10:21.788 --> 10:22.831
-[child VO] Brown on the face.
10:22.831 --> 10:23.832
-[woman VO] Forever--
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-[child VO] Darkie.
10:24.833 --> 10:25.542
-[woman VO] And ever.
10:25.542 --> 10:26.334
-[children VO] Nigger!
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Nigger!
10:27.210 --> 10:28.753
Nigger!
10:28.753 --> 10:32.966
[laughter]
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♪\"Frere Jacques\"
plays on music box♪
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-[child VO] She\'s my mum.
10:46.980 --> 10:48.815
-[child VO] Oh, it is?
10:48.815 --> 10:52.694
-[child VO] You\'re
a little darkie!
11:16.176 --> 11:18.720
-[woman VO] [inaudible] wouldn\'t
clean my skin because my skin
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wasn\'t dirty.
11:32.108 --> 11:36.321
The real dirt, I washed away.
11:36.738 --> 11:40.825
It took a while, it
took a childhood.
11:44.495 --> 11:48.666
-[man VO] Bathing in the
vastness of the ocean...
11:58.426 --> 11:59.969
-[woman VO] The water soothed.
11:59.969 --> 12:02.055
It [inaudible].
12:02.055 --> 12:05.767
-[man VO] Exorcizing the pain.
12:09.520 --> 12:13.399
-[woman VO]
Shattering distorted dreams.
12:14.108 --> 12:17.487
-[man VO] The self-hate.
12:17.487 --> 12:20.406
The doubt.
12:21.699 --> 12:23.660
-[woman VO] A real cleanliness.
12:23.660 --> 12:26.788
Fresh, sparkling.
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A sense.
12:30.833 --> 12:35.838
A glimpse of a reflection
of a child worth loving: me.
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-[man VO] Making friends with
that little boy who had tried so
12:52.981 --> 12:57.735
hard to make sense of a world
that had already betrayed him.
13:00.738 --> 13:04.701
Melting pot or incinerator?
13:06.411 --> 13:09.330
From the day we
returned from Nigeria,
13:09.330 --> 13:13.793
we spent the remainder of
our childhood first scrubbing,
13:13.793 --> 13:17.964
then apologizing, then
fighting for our skin.
13:18.840 --> 13:22.552
It made me strong,
but not strong enough.
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-[woman VO] Melting
pot or incinerator?
13:26.556 --> 13:30.810
-[man VO] A fire to
burn contaminated goods.
13:30.810 --> 13:34.188
Instruments of our self-hate.
13:39.694 --> 13:44.157
-[woman VO] A special kind of
strength: an isolation disguised
13:44.157 --> 13:49.162
as independence that comes from
knowing that no one can ever
13:49.287 --> 13:53.750
again hurt me as much
as I hurt myself...
13:53.750 --> 13:57.128
except maybe you.
14:01.132 --> 14:03.926
That I will let no
one judge me again,
14:03.926 --> 14:07.764
except you.
14:07.764 --> 14:10.641
Who am I talking to?
14:10.641 --> 14:14.145
My unborn daughter or to that
little girl who was me as a
14:14.145 --> 14:15.938
child?
14:15.938 --> 14:17.315
-[woman VO] Princess.
14:17.315 --> 14:18.191
[inaudible].
14:18.191 --> 14:19.859
Princess.
14:19.859 --> 14:22.487
-[woman VO] It doesn\'t matter.
14:22.487 --> 14:27.492
You are one and the same,
intertwined and interchangeable.
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And I love you all
the more for being so.
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I will not give my child to a
world that does not deserve her.
14:47.220 --> 14:50.181
-[child VO] When I
grow up, I wanna be...
15:01.025 --> 15:03.194
-[woman VO] The man
I love may be white,
15:03.194 --> 15:07.907
but the father of my
child will be black.
15:08.199 --> 15:11.160
For I have not yet enough
courage to throw my child into
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the great big melting pot,
knowing it is still so hot,
15:15.373 --> 15:19.001
she may have her coffee-colored
skin burnt red raw,
15:19.001 --> 15:22.130
so uncomfortable that she spends
her childhood not being able to
15:22.130 --> 15:25.341
look at her
reflection without shame,
15:25.341 --> 15:29.554
and as a grown-up, the
very second she can.
15:29.554 --> 15:33.015
[fire crackling]
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-[child VO] [inaudible].
