Token Black Girl Quotes

“Apparently, it is too difficult for people—white people—to imagine themselves as embodied by a Black character, but Black children are forced to do the reverse constantly.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“I oscillated between the complicated desire to be both visible (wanting to see myself and imagine who I could be) and invisible (in that there was no real difference between me and the people who surrounded me).”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? . . . Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? . . . Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to? . . . You should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you. —”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“We are all a mess of contradictions, and we feel them crashing together as we move through the world. It is not enough to simply declare insecurities without trying to figure out their source because—I promise you—they will keep coming back up. We have to learn to live with them, and to make space for others to do the same.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“Do not feel threatened if Black women are celebrating themselves; join in.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“I have been the Token Black Girl all my life, and I know when I am being used and to what extent, but at this point, I am going to make it work for me too.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“I often have flashbacks to the ways I was disciplined as a child, the way I was nearly kicked out of high school for making one terrible comment, and I can’t help observing with wonder the tornadoes of harm and destruction these rich white people can leave in their wake and still come out on top.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“I began to loosen the reins on the ideology that your work friends are family. It started to feel like cheapening the concept of family by including coworkers. My family, lucky for me, is stable, supportive, and loving. And using that kind of family terminology at work is emotional manipulation, simply a tactic of capitalism to get employees to feel guilty about having personal boundaries and taking days off.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“Planting a seed of doubt that erodes a Black person’s self-esteem is a classic tactic of white supremacy.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“she believed it because she believed the most pivotal lie of American life: the words scribbled on the so-called Declaration of Independence, declaring that “all men are created equal.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“White supremacy exerts a stranglehold over every culture that is not exclusively white and flattens Blackness, producing a mythic monolith of Black culture, one that commands there is a singular way to be Black.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“I hope this book encourages people to understand that there are many factors at work in our mental and social conditioning, and we must cultivate media landscapes that are more inclusive and that celebrate our racial, physical, and external differences frequently and with enthusiasm.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“The Token Black Girl is characterized mostly by her proximity to her white peers and her nonthreatening and friendly nature. She is nonthreatening because she is almost never the romantic interest, and her primary function is to provide “attitude” and “sass,” either as humor or as an attempt to elevate the sex appeal of the otherwise all-white entity. She is a good student because she has to be. She actually feels like she has to be good at everything. She’s almost always a good dancer, and even if she’s not, it doesn’t matter because everyone will still think she’s a good dancer. She either has or can get the requisite social signifiers of acceptance—everything except white skin, of course. She will be well spoken, well dressed, and well groomed. She likes all the things her friends like, including boys, but they will not like her. She almost never acknowledges her position as the sole Black member of a group because talking about race makes white people uncomfortable. She can never make white people uncomfortable. Her most critical responsibility is providing protection against the “racist” label that might otherwise be hurled at a gaggle of white women devoid of ethnic variety.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? . . . Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? . . . Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to? . . . You should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you. —Malcolm X, May 1962”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? . . . Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? . . . Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to? . . . You should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“It’s the media’s job to accurately reflect the world we live in, not distort it.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“Women are taught that our bodies must be fixed and that, if given the power to do so, we should use it.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“How much pain you can withstand should not be the barometer of how successful you can become.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“When you work in an industry responsible for imagery that can affect millions of people, you are constantly at moral odds with what you know is right and the requirements of your job. Since the industry favors white supremacy, it requires you to do the same.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“There has been wider acceptance of different body types, skin tones and racial backgrounds, but the acknowledgment that you need to broaden customer appeal to sell something is not synonymous with genuine respect.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“The pathology of constantly striving to improve oneself had worked so flawlessly on me… I thought when I was critical, I was being helpful.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“Too sensitive… You can’t take a joke... This further ostracizes you and when stakes get higher - a promotion, raise, or job hinges on your ability to ‘hang’ - you might be surprised at what you can ignore.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“I love clothing… for the ways it allowed me to construct an idealized version of myself and my life… I could build myself into a new person with each outfit… Being better dressed helped me establish my worthiness. This is an ugly thing to admit so no one does.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“I was convinced I had to work for and earn affection… I would have to put in the time and effort to be loved.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“was in distress. I had enjoyed being “the new girl.” I did not enjoy being “the Black girl.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“my father, a “nice-looking” but Black man, was thrown against the wall by NYPD in a mistaken-identity stop and frisk.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“My parents would often say that they raised us to be “colorblind.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“we never discussed race, Blackness, or identity explicitly, unless the outside world made it absolutely necessary.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“I got the message: “Sorry, you’re not actually lovable.” The indoctrination was subtle and absolute. I trained myself to be smaller in the physical and metaphysical sense. I squeezed myself into that narrow lens as much as possible, and I suffocated there.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl

“using that kind of family terminology at work is emotional manipulation, simply a tactic of capitalism to get employees to feel guilty about having personal boundaries and taking days off.”
― Danielle Prescod, Token Black Girl