As a Black girl, I quickly learned from others that there were many things about myself that needed to shrink. Not just my body—my laugh, my ambitions, my imagination, my will, and eventually my anger—everything I was would need to be less. But even as I fought to make myself smaller, my self would fight back. The diets would not stick, the laughter would not quiet, the opinions would not hide, the anger would not die. Every attempt I made to be less of myself would fail, and I would come back bigger than ever—in every way.
