Viola Davis recollects the shame and trauma she faced during her childhood years in her memoir, “Finding Me.”
The Tony and Oscar-winning actress narrated her experiences while growing up amidst poverty and violence in a predominantly white neighborhood in Rhode Island, on “The View.”
Davis said there was no one around who could explain to her that there wasn’t any stigma in being dark-skinned or what it meant to be Black when she was young.
She said that she “internalized” the childhood trauma she went through and felt a “complete absence of love.”
Davis explained that she finds it hard to talk much about her stories of growing up in poverty, or of colorism, or the comparison of her skin tone to being darker than a paper bag because those are not pleasant.
But she goes on to say, “Then if I can't talk about that, then I can't show up and if I don't show up, I can't connect with anyone. So what I find, especially as a black woman is then the only option you have is to assimilate.” And that is the reason for her memoir.
