Chapter 4
Coming of Age and Cultural Double Standards
At age eleven, I received my first lesson about inappropriate behavior from my cousin Mia. Her warning carried complex emotions that I wouldn't fully understand until middle school, when I observed how social dynamics and attraction played out differently across racial lines. The social hierarchy was clear: certain groups received preferential treatment while others faced unwanted attention or exclusion.
During recess, I witnessed concerning patterns of behavior where some students were subjected to unwanted physical contact while others remained untouched. This created a problematic dynamic where negative attention became misinterpreted as social validation. I found myself adapting my behavior and appearance to gain notice from a particular classmate who showed interest in specific groups.
To fit in, I modified my presentation - changing my clothing choices from mainstream brands to more trendy urban styles. When I finally received the attention I sought, it proved hollow, as the student quickly returned to his previous relationship with a popular classmate.
My mother cautioned me about certain behavioral labels that carried specific cultural weight in our community. Later, reading Zadie Smith's "Swing Time," I recognized these childhood experiences as part of a broader pattern affecting young women of color internationally. Smith's novel illustrated similar social dynamics I had witnessed firsthand.
The cautionary phrases used in our community weren't simple moral judgments - they represented complex protective mechanisms, though often with unintended negative consequences. Young women of color face unique cultural expectations from an early age. They must exceed standard behavioral norms while navigating stricter social limitations than their peers.
Society often denies young women of color the space for normal childhood development. The labels applied to them reveal deeper biases - there are no equivalent terms for young men, whose social freedoms face fewer restrictions. When young men face criticism, it typically focuses on appearance or work ethic rather than character or virtue. This creates additional challenges for young women of color, who may feel like outsiders even within their own communities.
The rewritten version maintains the core message about double standards and coming of age while using more indirect language suitable for audio generation. It preserves the important social commentary while avoiding potentially triggering descriptions.
Chapter 5
Princeton's Romantic Desert and Sexual Politics
At Princeton, I faced the painful reality of being overlooked romantically. Though my mother and grandmother expected college to be where I'd find a husband, the odds were against me-Black women outnumbered Black men three to one, and I was determined to prove I wasn't unattractive to men of my community.
Despite joining the Princeton Association of Black Women and successfully "bickering" into Cannon eating club (populated by top athletes), my efforts to be "seen" at parties failed. My invisibility was confirmed when a Black football player friend asked me to help list Princeton's most attractive Black women-I wasn't among them. I felt untouchable, at the bottom of our caste system.
After being stood up by a Black grad student and experiencing other failed connections without closure, I wondered if something was intrinsically wrong with me. I began to question if my outspoken nature was the problem-the other Black women who attracted men seemed less vocal and more reserved than I was. By graduation, I'd never been in a relationship or even kissed someone during those four years.
At twenty-two, I reconnected with Bradley, a childhood friend who'd always admired me. When he invited me on an all-expenses-paid trip to Nevada, I didn't hesitate, desperate for male attention after my Princeton drought. Despite his expectation of sex, I refused penetration but performed oral sex-not from desire but obligation. I viewed it as payment for his investment and a way to be "docile" with the mouth that had perhaps kept men away.
After returning home, we maintained intimacy through video calls and declared love despite the distance. I prepared for my next visit by getting birth control, planning to lose my virginity. But after my mother's prayer that "anything hidden would be revealed," Bradley confessed he wasn't ready for exclusivity-he wanted to travel and sleep with other women.
The breakup shattered me. I cried whenever someone mentioned his name, kept my phone close hoping for a message, and sought therapy. In retrospect, losing my virginity to him would have been traumatic, but at the time I hated myself for thinking I deserved more than billions of other women who have sex without commitment.
Chapter 6
The Myth of the Strong Black Woman
As my stepfather battled frontotemporal lobe dementia, I struggled with my own mental health. After a near-house fire caused by his condition, I developed anxiety and OCD behaviors-checking locks and stove knobs repeatedly, fearing sudden self-harm. Though diagnosed by a campus psychologist, I resisted further treatment, believing "Black people do not do therapy" despite my stepfather being a psychologist himself. I justified this resistance by citing historical medical exploitation of Black bodies, from J. Marion Sims' gynecological experiments on enslaved women to Henrietta Lacks' stolen cells.
I internalized the "Strong Black Woman" stereotype-the belief that Black women must endure all suffering without complaint, serving as the backbone for family and community. This ideal appears complimentary but actually dehumanizes by denying our vulnerabilities and needs. This resilience has been reclaimed through "Black Girl Magic," a movement popularized by CaShawn Thompson to counteract negative images of Black women by celebrating achievements of figures like Beyonce, Simone Biles, and Michelle Obama.
The Black Girl Magic movement celebrates Black women's bodily autonomy after generations of exploitation-our bodies violated during slavery, our features denigrated, our womanhood used against us. But for disabled Black women, bodily autonomy involves battling limitations from within and discrimination from without. As Crystal R. Emery noted, being a "wheelchair-riding quadriplegic" Black woman means facing triple stigmatization. Our dismissal of Dr. Chavers's critique reveals our ableist privilege, as her follow-up piece received barely 126 Facebook shares compared to her original essay's 9,000.
Surprisingly, my religious mother suggested I try therapy months before my stepfather passed. She made my first appointment and offered to sit with me. Though initially fidgety and clock-watching, I soon felt weights lifting from my heart. I finally had someone to discuss my feelings of weakness without embarrassment. As a Black woman at an Ivy League university, I'd felt pressured to maintain perfection in a space not originally meant for people like me. My therapist helped me restructure my thought process without challenging my religious beliefs. Gradually, my OCD symptoms subsided-the checking behaviors, nighttime panic, and fear diminished. Though occasional compulsions still arise, I'm learning to trust myself more.
Chapter 7
When Your Blackness Makes You a Target
My treatment in St. Petersburg, Russia was milder than what other Black visitors have experienced, but the threat of danger was omnipresent. Russians would stare unblinkingly at me for uncomfortably long periods with stoic faces and unyielding eyes-not attraction but surveillance. With limited vocabulary, I couldn't confront this rudeness. It took weeks before I felt comfortable riding the metro alone. Once, when I did venture out alone, a man followed me from the token booth onto the train, creating such unease that I had to strategically slip between other passengers to escape at my stop, knowing I couldn't blend into the crowd because of my blackness.
At Mishka Bar with fellow students, I finally relaxed, feeling I could pretend I wasn't different from anyone else. But when we followed locals to another bar, a drunk Russian man pinned me against a wall. Michael rescued me, but at the next establishment, we encountered skinheads. I grabbed Daniel and fled immediately while our white Edinburgh companions stayed behind, even joining in Nazi salutes which they later claimed was from fear. Their giggles suggested it was just another wild story they could afford because they were white. Meanwhile, I was terrified, knowing Zambian students had been beaten and a Senegalese student shot dead in this same city.
I'd never lived in a predominantly Black space before Harlem. Growing up, I was taught not to "embarrass" my mother with certain behaviors or dress when in white spaces-my dialect modulated, gesticulations moderated, voice quieted, hair tamed. I considered this "proper" and "normal" for success in white domains. But in Harlem, I was unprepared for how out of element I felt. My education in white spaces had reduced my own culture to disconnected historical images-the Cotton Club, Apollo, Baldwin, Holiday, crack and crime.
I felt closer to my white, gay, Republican roommate Thomas than to my neighbors. We bonded over literature and trap music, discussing gentrification-he believed neither of us would be living in Harlem without it. I wondered if I, college-educated and upwardly mobile, was as much a gentrifier as Thomas was. This introspection led to my viral Guardian article, which drew both praise and criticism. My confusion stemmed from realizing I'd always used white behavior as my reference point and didn't know how to exist in a Black space.
Chapter 8
Who Gets to Tell Black Women's Stories?
When Beyonce released Lemonade on HBO in April 2016, I wasn't prepared for its impact. Despite my tendency to avoid hyped releases, I watched it for an Elle.com assignment and found myself broken open by its raw melodies of heartbreak and grief. I mourned relationships I'd never had, sons I'd never birthed, marriages I'd never entered. On Twitter that night, Black women filled a reservoir of emotions they might not have fully articulated but felt deeply in their souls. Beyonce had awakened something dormant in us all-Lemonade wasn't about uplifting Black people generally, but Black women specifically.
The 2014 French film Girlhood centers on Marieme, a sixteen-year-old Black girl in a poor Parisian suburb seeking belonging through friendship with other Black girls. The film magnificently explores how Black girls navigate a racist, patriarchal society where poverty seems predetermined. Despite my admiration for the film, I was troubled to discover director Celine Sciamma, a white middle-class woman, claimed the film wasn't "about race" but was "universal." She based it on observations of Black girls in shopping centers without apparently speaking to them, believing her experience of marginality as a white middle-class woman somehow compared to theirs.
Sciamma's claim that she wanted to "give a face to French youth" implies Black girls lack visibility without her intervention. This reinforces her role as white benefactor while positioning Black girls as nameless subjects. Though Girlhood is brilliantly crafted, a Black woman from a poor Parisian suburb could have told this story more authentically, without being a spectator. Similarly, Orange Is the New Black's fourth season explored racism and prison brutality toward Black women without Black women writers.
Why is the film titled Girlhood rather than Black Girlhood or Marieme? Sciamma's insistence on "universality" reveals how whiteness assumes itself as the center of any experience. Her statements about making characters "universal" demonstrate her forcing herself into a narrative that was never hers. She didn't merely observe these Black girls' bodies-she confiscated them to reproduce the white fallacy that progress requires erasing racial identities. Contrasting this with Lemonade-a visual experience co-directed by a Black woman that keeps Black women unapologetically centered-shows why I refuse to resign myself to white-directed narratives of Black experience.
Chapter 9
Breaking the Cycle of Competition
Morgan Jerkins deeply examines the complex dynamics of professional relationships among Black women writers, reflecting on both painful experiences of being denied support and her conscious decision to break this cycle. She describes specific instances where established Black writers refused to share industry contacts or offer mentorship, analyzing how the publishing industry's tokenism creates an environment where Black women often feel they must compete for limited opportunities. This scarcity mindset manifests in subtle ways-unreturned emails, deflected requests for introductions, and a general atmosphere of guardedness that perpetuates isolation.
Drawing from her own journey, she commits to a different approach, detailing her practice of responding to emerging Black female writers within 48 hours and maintaining an open-door policy for sharing professional contacts. However, she candidly acknowledges her own occasional struggles with comparison and competition, describing moments when another Black woman's success triggered feelings of insecurity. These reflections reveal the ongoing internal work required to maintain solidarity in a system designed to pit marginalized voices against each other.
The author vividly recalls that pivotal childhood experience-trying out for an all-white cheerleading squad at age ten-as the beginning of a pattern that would follow her through Princeton and into her professional life. Rather than being diminished by these experiences, she transformed them into fuel for excellence, taking particular satisfaction in disrupting spaces traditionally closed to Black women. "It was not only our presence that made them mad, but our excellence," she writes, "This was their nightmare and my joy."
Morgan Jerkins' memoir serves as both personal narrative and cultural critique, methodically documenting the ways Black womanhood is systematically challenged in American society. Through detailed analysis of her experiences in education, publishing, and professional spaces, she illuminates the broader structures of racism and sexism. Her evolution from seeking white approval to embracing and celebrating her identity offers a powerful template for resistance. By maintaining raw honesty about her experiences, including moments of vulnerability and triumph, Jerkins creates an authentic narrative that challenges readers to confront their own biases while providing validation and inspiration for other Black women navigating similar spaces.
