Girl, 4, Goes Viral with Her Response After Little Boy Tells Her He Doesn't Like Her Natural Hair (Exclusive)
Leila Danai, 4, went viral on TikTok after defending her natural hair against a classmate
Leila Danai/Instagram
Leila DanaiA 4-year-old girl from Florida has gone viral on TikTok after her mom posted a video of her telling the story of how a boy in her class didn't like her natural hair.
Back in July, Mildred Munjanganja posted a short clip of the then-3-year-old, named Leila Danai, talking about her day as the two drove home from school. In the video, Danai tells her mom that a classmate named Owen shared he wasn't too fond of her hairstyle while they were in school.
"Owen said he didn't like my hair, but I said, 'I like it,' " Danai exclaims.
"Good!" the proud mama can be heard chiming in the background, before asking Leila to elaborate. "He said, 'I don't like that hair, it's crazy,' " Danai explains. "And I said, 'My mommy made it. If you don't like it, I'll keep it for myself.'"
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Danai's confidence and gracious take on the incident has gained the attention of TikTok users around the world. As it stands, the video has garnered over 1.9 million views, with over 404,600 likes and shares combined. Not only has the tot garnered support from strangers on the internet, but she also caught the attention of one notable Hollywood name: Viola Davis.
"[That's how] this whole thing started. I posted [the video in July] and somehow Viola Davis picked it up and reposted it," Munjanganja tells PEOPLE exclusively. "And then it had, I don't know, 30 million views in different places."
The video has gotten so much support, that the bright 4-year-old has gone international.
"I've had people reach out to me from Pakistan, from Syria, from different countries and they're telling me how this video has given them so much hope, how her standing up for herself has resonated with them and it's given them confidence, and now they're thinking about how they're raising their children and what they're teaching their kids," Munjanganja says.
But that was hardly the first time the pair have had a heartfelt moment on camera. A scroll down their TikTok page shows the mommy-daughter duo frequently engaged in various chats as they ride to and from school. In one video, the two break down the importance of drawing boundaries, in another, they hash out an incident that "frustrated" Danai, and in another, Danai simply sings some affirmations to her mother.
"My parents are in Zimbabwe. And every day, they would be like, 'Send us a video of Leila, send us a picture, send us this or that,' " she explains. "So I started recording these videos for my parents so that they can live the experience of their granddaughter, even though she's not with them."
When it comes to the grace and poise Danai displayed as she talked about the incident at school, Munjanganja says she's always tried to make sure her daughter understands that other people's opinions don't have to affect her.
"That's the one thing that we have spoken about, is people will have different opinions and we can thank them for their contribution, but we don't have to soak it in," she explains. "We don't have to take it, we don't have to accept it, we don't have to allow it to ruin our day. We can simply acknowledge that it's their contribution, but it's theirs."
Munjanganja has also been intentional about teaching her daughter about embracing the things that make her unique. When Danai started going to school, she'd come home wanting "long, flowy, silky hair," like some of the classmates in her predominantly White school, Munjanganja explains.
However, to enforce the idea of embracing her own beauty, Munjanganja — who works at Allivet.com Pet Pharmacy — took her daughter to a dog show, where she got to impart an important lesson.
"What I did was take her to a dog show to see different breeds of dogs, see that they've got different colors, different types of fur, etc. And she thought they were all cute and they're all beautiful," she shares.
"That's how I was able to say, 'Hey. So you see how you think all these dogs are cute, one is white, one is black, one is brown, one has curly hair, straight hair, straight fur, ... it's the same thing with people. We have different textures and colors, but at the end of the day, our differences are what make us beautiful,' and that really resonated with her."
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