'Alice' Star Keke Palmer on Her 'Powerful' New Movie: 'It's Not Trauma Porn'

"If a character like Alice was able to keep going and she actually endured slavery, then what do you think that you could do?" Keke Palmer tells PEOPLE

Fans love Keke Palmer for her electric sense of humor and knack for always using the perfect meme. But the actress-singer gets serious in her new movie Alice, in which she stars as a woman enslaved on a plantation in 19th century Georgia.

"I felt like it spoke to history in the Black slave narrative in a way that was not so victimizing," Palmer, 28, tells PEOPLE in this week's Women Changing the World issue of why she took on the role.

"There's only one angle that we usually get the slave narrative from, and it's usually from an oppressor standpoint," she adds. "It does not empower the youth and it does not come with a sense of pride that I feel like I've always felt growing up when my parents talk to me about our history."

The I Don't Belong to You author, who founded the Saving Our Cinderellas arm of the Saving Our Daughters nonprofit, hopes Alice offers inspiration.

"It's not trauma porn," she says. "It's like, 'This happened. Let's show you how our people found hope.' If a character like Alice was able to keep going and she actually endured slavery, then what do you think that you could do? That, to me, is very powerful and important for my generation to see because we are at that breaking point in our own way."

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Keke Palmer in Alice (2022). Roadside Attractions and Vertical Entertainment

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Palmer remembers experiencing "what we've come to know now as microaggressions" as a kid. "It's, 'Oh, the teacher pinched me, but she ain't never put her hands on the other kids.' Or it's, 'Oh, somebody said somebody lied in class, and it wasn't me but somehow I got blamed,' " the former GMA3 cohost explains. "It was the constant bullying that I experienced where it just didn't match up."

Because at home, "I never felt bad about being Black, so that's why I did not understand really what most of those things were coming from," Palmer continues. "[My parents] gave me such a great sense of pride about who I am."

Ultimately, Palmer decided to block out the negativity. "The only answer I have is to go where the love is, to focus on the people that support you, to focus on the people that do see you," she says. "Don't beg the Oscars to nominate you if the NAACP Awards is already acknowledging you."

"Go where people respect and feel that you are deserving of love and just don't pay attention to the rest. I'm not going to change everybody's mind," Palmer advises. "Everybody's not going to like me, so I just have to focus on the ones that do."

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Palmer tries to instill that sense of self-worth in the girls she works with through Savings Our Cinderellas, which gets its name from when the Emmy winner starred in Cinderella on Broadway in 2014 and invited a group of underprivileged girls to come see their first Broadway show.

The program focuses on integrating values of confidence and leadership into BIPOC adolescents' daily lives.

"We all can relate to feeling down on ourselves," says Palmer, who will star this summer in Jordan Peele's Nope.

"That's the biggest thing about bullying, is you feel shame, you feel embarrassed, you want to deal with it on your own, and I think that only creates an even more isolating and lonely situation," the actress explains.

Watch Women Changing the World: Keke Palmer on PeopleTV.com or on the PeopleTV app.

Keke Palmer with Save Our Daughters. Courtesy

So Palmer aims to teach the girls "to really value themselves, because in life that's really all you have," the Illinois native says. "You are your own source, so the more that you can dig into you, the more that you're going to be able to deal with life."

The Disney Channel vet also preaches finding your own form of self-care.

"When you feel down, don't be afraid to find unique ways to reconnect," Palmer says. "Sometimes that's pampering yourself. Sometimes that's writing in your journal. Sometimes that's removing certain friends out your life. Sometimes that's allowing new friendships to come into your life. Sometimes that's doing your hair."

She adds, "There's so many different ways, but keeping a tight, close-knit relationship with yourself is No. 1."

Keke Palmer. Theo Wargo/Getty

For Palmer, who has dealt with anxiety and depression, "My sense of humor, that's part of how I survive," she tells PEOPLE. "That's where my big love for memes came from. The fact that this meme is there means other people are also feeling the same way."

And embracing her true self has helped the star feel liberated.

"I have been able to own being myself, and I think that's the greatest relief," Palmer says. "At the end of the day, who does or doesn't like me, at least it's the real me. I don't have to feel like I'm trying to be somebody that I'm not."

Alice opens in theaters March 18.

For more from Keke Palmer, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now.