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up, ripping up my dresses, and losing
     my hair clips, but inside I felt every inch a girl. When my cousin Sharondashowed me her father’s book of Muslim names and
     I came across “Latifah,” I decided that had to be my new name, because it meant “delicate, sensitive, and kind.” That was
     exactly how I felt inside.
Who You Callin’ a Tomboy?
    But at every stage in life, people come along who test your self-esteem. There’s always going to be someone who’s going to
     try to tear you down. Self-love is something we have to work hard at every day. As filled as I was with love at home, outside
     in the world of schoolyards and Newark streets it was a different story. In fourth grade I changed schools, and I was very
     much the new kid trying to join in at recess. Instead of playing hopscotch or drawing on the concrete like the other girls,
     I was drawn to whatever sports the boys were playing, whether it was football, softball, or basketball. I’d always played
     these sports with my dad and my big brother, and I was good at all of them. But that didn’t seem to matter to my new classmates.
     They’d all been together since kindergarten, and they were determined to let me know my place. There was a kid named Andrew,
     a typical alpha male, and he put himself in charge of all the sports teams. When it came time to pick the players, he’dalways
     choose me last, if at all. Boys are under their own pressures from their peers. They don’t want some girl showing them up
     and getting a basket or a hit on them, and I guess the fact that I was so competitive in sports made me a threat.
    Pretty soon, the boys in school started calling me a tomboy, and they didn’t mean it in a gentle, teasing kind of way. They
     were saying straight out that I somehow wanted to be a boy and that I wasn’t pretty or cute the way a regular girl should
     be. I hated that word, and I couldn’t fathom why they were saying it to me. It especially hurt when Wink called me that. (It
     soon stopped when he realized how much it upset me.) One day I felt so bad, I came home to my mother, crying, “Ma, why are
     they calling me a tomboy?”
    My mother said, “Dana honey, you’re not a tomboy. You’re just athletically inclined.”
    Now, try telling that to a bunch of schoolkids on a blacktop in New Jersey. But the next time the taunts came, I did just
     that. I told Andrew, “I’m not a tomboy, I’m athletically inclined!” Of course, it didn’t go over too well. But I said it with
     all the backbone I could muster. At first, he looked dumbfounded. Then he laughed, and the whole schoolyard joined in. But
     this was what I had to do. It was more an idea for me to have in my own mind. With all my nine-year-old wisdom, I decided
     I was not going tofeed into what people said about who I was. I was not going to let other kids define me. I chose instead
     to define myself, even if it was in a completely ridiculous way. And guess what? Pretty soon after that, other kids started
     picking me first to play on their teams.
    Self-esteem starts early in life. We begin with a clean slate, but it gets junked up fast. As children, we are so vulnerable
     to the stereotypes people want to heap on us. It seems like everyone has an idea of how we’re supposed to be from the time
     we can crawl. This is especially true for girls. All too often, our self-esteem is tied up in our looks. Our bodies get scrutinized
     and criticized from the minute we start developing. And when we’re a little thicker than the feminine ideal dictates, it’s
     even worse. That’s why we need to be strong and love ourselves for the fact that we are about so much more than our looks.
Love Yourself
    Gabby Sidibe, the star of
Precious
, plays a character who’s tortured by the people around her for the way she looks, but in real life she’s bubbly and happy,
     nothing like the character she plays. I love what she has to say about this: “I sleep with myself every nightand I