Amandla Stenberg — one of those teens I know I should be into, but I always forget — is saying some pretty sensible stuff in a new issue of Teen Vogue.
The 18-year-old sat down with singer Janelle Monae to talk about racism, Trump and black girl magic, and y’all know I’m here for it.
Like, firstly? She found out Trump got elected from a dude in a Nazi uniform. Can you even?
“I was shooting a scene in ‘Where Hands Touch,’ a film about a biracial girl growing up during the Holocaust,” she says. “In the scene, my character’s papers get taken away by a Nazi officer and the officer yells in her face, basically telling her that she does not belong in her own country.
“An actor playing a Nazi soldier took out his phone to refresh the news and announced that Trump was president… Immediately, I excused myself because I felt like I couldn’t breathe anymore. I started sobbing. It was shocking. It made me really question how we could reach a point where our country is so divided.” Girl, same. Except the Nazi part. There were no people dressed as Nazis at the Brooklyn bar I was probably at, guzzling my worries away.
She also says some nonsense about ditching her smartphone for a flip phone. Girl, you will pry my very old iPhone SE from my poorly manicured dead hands.
“Amid all of the chaos in the world right now, it’s so important that everyone actively works to preserve their mental health so that we’re able to heal and create change. I got rid of my iPhone, and that was essential in preserving my mental health,” she says. Mmkay.
“Now I have a flip phone that I just use to talk to people and hear their actual voices. I’m worried about the mental health effects of smartphones and social media on kids because it is one large social experiment that we don’t know the outcome of.” OK, lost me there. I mean, sure maybe it’s a social experiment but, you know, it’s one I benefit from?
Suffice it to say, this 18-year-old has it way more together than me, and I’m OK with that.
