In Short –  Issue 2 (Winter 2025)

January 31, 2025

Image credit: Camille Rimbawa

Two days after a conversation about Disney princess films, the little brown girl inside me reflects on everything I didn’t say

By Karen Baumgart

Perhaps, when the Brothers Grimm penned Rapunzel, hair colour wasn’t that important to them. Perhaps they imagined hair “as fine as spun gold” could be chocolate-brown or black. Perhaps Rapunzel glowed in other ways, eagerly finding magic in the ordinary, like the way a cake sings its fragrance when perfectly baked, or a cat will always sit in an empty box.

Perhaps Rapunzel smiled patiently when Uber drivers asked her where she was from, or acquaintances tried to guess her “ethnicity.”

Perhaps Rapunzel wasn’t blonde, or fair. Perhaps, this was the least remarkable thing about her.

Karen Baumgart (she/her) lives in Australia and adores beautiful quotes, pink things, cats, and chai tea. She loves working in human services policy, especially when it enables marginalised people to have a voice. Karen used to be an English teacher, and is quite certain that writing is, indeed, the best therapy.