I was just a black girl, a little long in the tooth, but still in my mind just a black girl writing. Black girls do not cause problems for powerful w… - Tressie McMillan Cottom

Black girls have not, for most of my understanding of our history in this nation, had the power to cause those kinds of problems. Black girls and black women are problems. That is not the same thing as causing problems. We are social issues to be solved, economic problems to be balanced, and emotional baggage to be overcome.

If I believe that I can become beautiful, I become an economic subject. My desire becomes a market.

The structural incompetence of black women is how we were made into property makers without any rights to property during slavery;

We work. Lord do black girls and black women work. 4 We start work early before it is paid work. Then we start paid work and most of us never stop, are unable to ever stop. We work to keep churches financially viable, 5 black colleges in business, 6 black families functioning, 7 black politics respectable, 8 and black men alive. 9