Queenie

by Candice Carty-Williams

“I can’t wake up and not be a black woman, Janet. I can’t walk into a room and not be a black woman, Janet. On the bus, on the Tube, at work, in the cafeteria. Loud, brash, sassy, angry, mouthy, confrontational, bitchy.”

These are all negatives that Black women have been called, either to their faces, online, or behind our backs. I’ve certainly been called all of these things, even though (in my opinion) I’m not any of these things. I don’t think any Black women who is called sassy is actually ever sassy. One of my key explorations in Queenie was the idea that the very little representation we have, be it in the media, novels, or on television and film, paints us as either: a) Sassy b) the Magical Negro or c) the exotic temptress. These presentations of Black women are reductive, and ultimately, they are unfair and damaging. They allow the narrative to be furthered in society that we are these things we’re shown to be. Queenie is telling her therapist that she can’t wake up and be anything but the things she’s been told by society that she is.