In a modern society, who is allowed to speak with authority is a political act. - Tressie McMillan Cottom

Black girlhood ends whenever a man says it ends.

When I say that I am unattractive or ugly, I am not internalizing the dominant culture’s assessment of me. I am naming what has been done to me. And signaling who did it.

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