Urban Pulse Direct Winter 2018 2nd Edition | Page 35

TEENS
ON TASK
10-Year Old Entrepreneur,
turns bullying over her dark skin into
“Flexin’ In My Complexion” apparel line
by Kheris Rodgers
I’m here to tell you that com-
plexion shaming in our culture
is real but that’s what makes
this young entrepreneur
Kheris Rodgers story so dope.
This amazingly gifted young
girl who was being bullied
because of the darkness of
her skin decided to do some-
thing about it. Kheris Rodgers
launched her very own cloth-
ing line called Flexin’ in My
Complexion with the mission
of helping to boost the self-
esteem of dark skinned girls.
So, what had happened was...
Kheris was being subjected to
bullying from her class mates
for being dark skinned which
was awful all by itself but to
make a stinky situation stank,
her “teacher” gave the kids an
assignment to draw a picture
of themselves. Instead of giv-
ing young Kheris a brown
crayon, the teacher gave
Kheris a black one. This was
enough to shatter this beauti-
ful young girl but her family
was having none that. (why
am I hearing the song pray-
ing grand mother in my head
right now) Anyway, Kheris’s
mother moved her to a more
“diverse” school but her older
sister Taylor Pollard (Don’t
you just love these names)
wasn’t done yet. Taylor began
taking Model like photos of
Kheris and posting them on
her Twitter account referring
to Kheris as “royalty” and the
hashtag #FlexinInHerCom-
plexion with each photo she
posted. One of Taylor’s tweets
went viral with over 100 thou-
sand like and shares and with
that, Flexin’ In my Complex-
ion was born.
Get the rest of this amazing
story at www.iloveupd.com
U R B A N PULSE DIRECT PAGE 35