The Other Black Girl Quotes

“With heightened awareness of cultural sensitivity comes great responsibility. If we’re not careful, ‘diversity’ might become an item people start checking off a list and nothing more—a shallow, shadowy thing with but one dimension.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Even when you just subtly imply that a white person is racist—especially a white man—they think it’s the biggest slap in the face ever. They’d rather be called anything other than a racist. They’re ready to fight you on it, tooth and nail.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“You know social justice doesn't take breaks for dinner.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Nella flinched. Hearing the phrase “these people” in reference to a mostly white group of people was strangely satisfying”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Fuck that. White people have been arriving late to the party for centuries, and they still get priority seats.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Nella’s colleagues at Wagner weren’t sociopaths. They all knew where one was and was not supposed to pee. But that didn’t make being around them any less stressful. Once you were in close quarters with them each day—once you’d spent more than a year making catatonic small talk around sputtering Keurigs and mottled bathroom sinks and Printer Row, grinning and bearing it while you learned about their new summer homes and their latest European vacations and wondered why you were still making fewer than twenty dollars an hour; once you got used to the fact that almost every time you came into contact with an unknown Black person in your place of work, this person was most likely going to ask you to sign for a package, or offer to fix your computer—it started to grate on you. So much so that, at least once a month, you got up from your desk, sauntered over to the ladies’ room, shut yourself in a stall, and asked yourself, Why am I still here?”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“It’s Pride and Prejudice meets I, Robot.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“But in other instances, he made so much sense that it hurt, like his post on why “well-meaning white folks” were sometimes far worse than white folks who wore their racist hearts on their sleeves. So, as Nella considered why she distrusted Needles and Pins so much, she also considered what Jesse had said about white people who went out of their way to present “diversity”: “With heightened awareness of cultural sensitivity comes great responsibility. If we’re not careful, ‘diversity’ might become an item people start checking off a list and nothing more—a shallow, shadowy thing with but one dimension.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Um, Nella,” Vera said, cocking her head diplomatically, “just to play devil’s advocate—couldn’t one say that’s just a tad bit racist of you to say?”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“..eight or nine women and one extremely serious-looking man had decided to spend their Monday evening exercising with a demonic workout instructor n the Flatbush District rather than doing something sensible, like restocking their wine supply or doing a crossword.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“OBGs. "Other Black Girls," Lynn had dubbed them, "because they're not our kind." They were something else entirely. Something close to alien....”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“At a historically Black college, Diana had been granted the blessed gift of tunnel vision. She'd been blessed with the ability to forget white people existed, if only for a little while.

I had been blessed with being smothered by them.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Ms. Hazel-Shit-Don't-Stink-May has built her reputation of being the 'good Black girl' at Wagner, right? How do you think your bosses would feel if she suddenly got super . . . Black?”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“When Nella had asked for a promotion, Vera had listed at least a dozen surprise grievances she'd had with Nella's performance as her assistant, the most unsettling of all: " I wish you'd put half the effort you put into those extracurricular diversity meetings into working on the core requirements."
The word "extracurricular" had hit Nella hard and fast in the eye, like a piece of shrapnel. The company basketball team, the paper-making club—those we're extracurriculars. Her endeavors to develop a diversity committee were not.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Well, I thought they were candidates in the running to replace me at work. ‘Diversity hires.’ But now—now I don’t know what their deal is. I overheard them call me ‘an Involuntary.’ As though I’m being, like… converted to something.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“She just knew there was a deeper explanation for why these young women were suddenly no longer beholden to anyone but themselves and the white people they worked for. Why they were so obsessed with success—and with taking down any Black women who got in their way.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Anyway… I guess this is all my way of saying we don’t need to see each other as competition. We already have enough stress being two young Black women in a crazy white environment.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“I’ve been getting these notes from some stranger telling me to leave work. They’ve been freaking me out.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“And now, days later—when she found herself being stared down by two very influential white people—she convinced herself this something was, It’s time, Queen Tell it now.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“You may think they’re okay with you, and they’ll make you think that they are. But they really aren’t. They never will be. Your presence only makes them fear their own absence.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Kiara,” Elaine Brown’s hair heir said, waving her magazine.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Locs or no locs, though… you know one of your coworkers is gonna mix you and the new Black girl up at least once. I promise you.”

-Malaika to Nella”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“A kind-lipped Harlemite who smelled heavily of Dial soap and Listerine. I let him lead me slowly”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“I let him lead me slowly”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“People I'd publicly called friends but has also privately called 'self-important vampires' because in corporate life, these things weren't mutually exclusive...”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Lurking beneath many of the friendly seeming meetings was an environment of pettiness and power plays; cold shoulders and closed-door conversations.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Just the mention of Williamsburg, despite its Apple Store, Whole Foods, and devastating selection of designer boutiques, caused Maisy to recoil as though someone had just asked to see the inside of her vagina. Surely this dreadlocked girl could sense that Maisy had no true sense of Harlem’s “culture.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Nella wanted to put a victorious fist in the air, 1968 Olympics– style. Instead, she made a mental note to text Malaika this latest Wagner update the earliest chance she got.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Maybe Richard saw it and decided to do something about the lack of diversity here? I mean, that would be something. Remember how hard it was just to get people talking about diversity in one place? Those meetings were painful.”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

“Nella’s heart fluttered as she felt something she supposed resembled a hot flash. Had it finally happened? Had all of her campaigning for more diversity at Wagner finally paid off”
― Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl