‘Afro Puff Chronicles’ & Community: Tyler Newman

“Ever since I was five, I’ve been surrounded by white people.”

Sitting across from me over a classic cup of hot chocolate, Tyler Newman reflects on this constant in her life not with bitterness, but with a wistful, enduring tilt to her voice.

Newman, 16, has a lot to reflect on as a black girl who has attended a predominantly white, upper class—or “ritzy,” as she calls it—private school for most of her life. She sees her school as made up of two conflicting worlds: one white and one nonwhite. Though Newman doesn’t see herself as a “victim” or “outcast” at her school, she does admit that living in such a community can be isolating at times. For years, Newman never found a place where girls of color in white-majority schools could come together and share their experiences.

So she created one.

Afro Puff Chronicles (A.P.C. for short) was created as “a place for girls of color to feel celebrated when they might not feel celebrated in their everyday life,” says Newman. The blog-slash-forum-slash-community shares ordinary resources—book recommendations, fashion tips, product reviews—as well as spotlights on the accomplishments of young women of color.  One section of A.P.C., “Up Close and Personal,” features interviews with young girls of color from around the world, publishing conversations on issues like race, education, and gender.

Most of all though, Afro Puff Chronicles is meant to be a community. Newman describes it as a place for friends to share their triumphs, their worries, and their empathy. The creator herself has found working on the blog to be a “healing process.” Newman’s proud to say that she feels much more confident in her skin—and her Afro Puff—than she did a couple years ago.

Her only wish is that she can extend that healing process to others too.