If my work is about anything it is about making plain precisely how prestige, money, and power structure our so-called democratic institutions so tha… - Tressie McMillan Cottom

Patricia Hill Collins once called on the idea of controlling images, those stereotypes that are so powerful they flatten all empirical status differences among a group of people to reduce them to the most docile, incompetent subjects in a social structure.

Originating as it does not from nation or kin but from the primordial ooze of capitalism, whiteness can only be defined by state power. It requires a legal system that can formalize irrational biological expressions, making them rational. It needs a justice system that will adjudicate the arbitrary inclusion and exclusion of people across time. And, most of all, whiteness requires a police state that can use violent force to defend its sovereignty.

One of the few surveys of public attitudes about black girls was conducted in 2014.4 The majority of those surveyed said that black girls need less protection and nurturing than white girls. Being perceived as grown comes with consequences even when you are not yet an adult.