Queenie

by Candice Carty-Williams

“. . . You said that I could be any type of black girl that I wanted to be.”

This line made me cry when I wrote it. I cry a lot, but that’s not the point. Black women contain multitudes. As I’ve said before, the representation of us (very rarely written or presented by us) is incredibly reductive; not only does it give us limited options of who we can be, but it makes us feel like we have to conform to those options. A lot of Queenie’s inner turmoil comes from the straddling of two cultures that she has to do, constantly. She has no idea what kind of Black girl she can be, or what kind of Black girl she should be. Thank God for Kyazike, a different type of Black girl to Queenie, who has always been around to remind Queenie that she can be whoever she wants to be. There’s no right or wrong way to be as a Black girl. And Kyazike, unapologetic and fearless, knows this because she has a stronger sense of self than poor Queenie.