This Will Be My Undoing

Starred review from November 13, 2017
Jerkins’s debut collection of essays forces readers to reckon with the humanity black women have consistently been denied. Her writing is personal, inviting, and fearless as she explores the racism and sexism black women face in America: “Blackness is a label that I do not have a choice in rejecting as long as systemic barriers exist in this country. But also, my blackness is an honor, and as long as I continue to live, I will always esteem it as such.” In her opening essay, Jerkins recounts the moment the division between black girls and white girls became clear to her, when she was told by a fellow black girl that “they don’t accept monkeys like you” after Jerkins failed to make the all-white cheerleading squad. This marks the first of many times that Jerkins asserts that a black woman’s survival depends on her ability to assimilate to white culture. A later essay addresses the paradox of the explicit sexualization of black women’s bodies and the cultural expectation that black women must be ashamed of their own sexuality in order to be taken seriously in a white world. At one point in the book, Jerkins lauds Beyoncé’s Lemonade as art that finally represents black women as entire, complex human beings. One could say the same about this gorgeous and powerful collection.

December 1, 2017

Jerkins provides a critical view of American culture, similar to Reni Eddo-Lodge's Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race, which is about the intersection of race and feminism in British culture. Here, the pop culture essayist examines her life as a feminist woman of color while sharing insight on her faith as it relates to contemporary culture. Weaving personal narratives with historical, social, and cultural anecdotes, Jerkins discusses such topics as body image, race identification, fitting in, dating, sexuality, faith, disability, and the Black Girl Magic movement. Each chapter provides insightful, personal, and frank analysis of how several identities can and do overlap with one another; especially being a black women of faith in white America. Jerkins provides awareness into her own complexities--college-educated, black, female, Millennial, feminist--in an attempt to figure out where she fits in and in an effort to uncover the intricacies of her multilayered identity. VERDICT For those interested in a younger perspective on black studies and feminism.--Tiffeni Fontno, Boston Coll.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2017
In the provocative essays collected in her first book, Jerkins meditates on how it feels to be a black woman in the United States today.Brought up in suburban New Jersey, educated at Princeton, and now living in Harlem and working in publishing, the author often feels like an outsider. Her essays, usually deeply personal and always political, examine that unease. In the first, she goes back to elementary school, when she realized that "the only thing I wanted was to be a white cheerleader." Other pieces consider the fraught issue of hair for black women, the self-repression imposed by the taboo against being thought a "fast-tailed girl," the social pressure to identify as a "human" rather than as a "black woman," and her ambivalence about the "black girl magic" movement. Some of her most effective essays take unusual shapes: one is an open letter to Michelle Obama, addressing her as "the beacon that reminds white people that 99 percent of them will never reach where you are," and another is an ironic list of instructions on "How to Be Docile," which provides the black female subject with everything she needs: "looks, deference to man, suppressed sexuality, silence." At times, particularly in the final essay, which lists many of the black women the author believes could have helped her and didn't, Jerkins comes across as whiny. Sometimes, as in the piece about the many reasons she decided to have labiaplasty, she appears to be working hard to justify her actions. While she identifies herself as a feminist, the primary "other" against whom Jerkins sets herself is the automatically privileged white woman, "supported, cared for, and coddled."At its best, the book reveals complicated, messily human responses to knotty problems. Never intended as the final word on the black female experience in America today, it uncovers the effect of social forces on one perceptive young woman.

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July 1, 2018

Jerkins has penned a complex look at what it means to be an African American woman who subscribes to the tenets of feminism but finds herself marginalized by and chained to a narrative crafted for her, not by her. These essays explore the many ways systemic racism and a lack of true solidarity within feminist circles impact black women. In "Monkeys Like You," the author deftly juxtaposes her dream of making an all-white cheerleading squad against the lunchroom bullying she receives at the hand of darker-skinned African American classmates. "How To Be Docile" examines how African American mothers sometimes unwittingly limit their daughters' sense of agency. Jerkins also thoroughly inspects the politics of natural hair, dating while black, and problematic voyeuristic writing, explaining how our culture separates a black woman from her humanity. This is an intensely personal, honest account of one woman's fight to reclaim her own narrative one word at a time. VERDICT An excellent addition to memoir collections.-Desiree Thomas, Worthington Library, OH

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2017
White people see it as a compliment when they do not see' you as a black person . . . because in white society, blackness exists only as a punishment. They do not understand that blackness doesn't undermine but rather vivifies our humanity. Jerkins' insightful response to the question of why she calls herself a black woman rather than simply a human encapsulates the themes of this tender, melodious essay collection. Whether parsing the pitfalls of the strong black woman trope, marveling at the obtuseness of white friends who casually introduce her to a skinhead, or navigating the layers of meaning around black hair in white spaces, Jerkins speaks firmly and unapologetically of misogynoir the myriad ways black womanhood is demeaned and debased in American society. Jerkins' forthright examination of her own experiences leads to a triumphant reclaiming of blackness in all its power, and her heartfelt love letter to Michelle Obama glows with familial pride in the beacon that reminds us that the ascendancy of a black woman . . . is possible. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)