Reading Progress:

Carefree Black Girls: Black Women are popular culture

by Nyasha Oliver

The truth is no matter how often the media attempts to mute our voices and discredit our influence, pop culture is irrelevant without black women. The world longs to know how we not only survive to tell the tale but thrive and create.

I came across this book at a time of reflection on how my identity is often subject to people’s opinions, especially on social media. I see social media as a sort of dark, cosmic vacuum sucking you into a maelstrom of ever-changing trends and Western beauty standards. I often find myself deleting the apps and going on prolonged breaks.

At first glance, Carefree Black Girls: A Celebration of Black Women in Popular Culture seemed like a feel-good collection about the pop icons that we all cherish and grew up idolising. Serena Williams, Azealia Banks, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Lizzo, Naomi Osaka, you-name-it. I was pleased to discover that this book pairs celebration with excavation, championing black women’s influence as it explores the politics behind their domination of pop culture and, crucially for me, how this domination plays out on social media.

The foreword is a conversation between author Zeba Blay and Clara Amfo, a radio broadcaster and carefree black girl like any of us. As the pair glide through a range of issues with ease, they unpack the experience of existing as a black woman in the entertainment space. Why is it that they’re never seen as complex, curious human beings with multiple interests? Why must they live a life of scrutiny in which everything they say and do is used to define and thereby limit them? And how is that this happens as black women show the world, again and again, that we are limitless and can make something out of nothing? The music, food, language, dance, and art we create at our lowest, as a means of survival, somehow becomes a vital medicine that heals the world.

The music, food, language, dance, and art we create at our lowest, as a means of survival, somehow becomes a vital medicine that heals the world.

Carefree Black Girls consists of eight chapters, including standouts “Body”, “She’s A Freak”, “Man, This Shit is Draining”, and “#Cardibissoproblematic”. From self-image and sexuality to mental health and the importance of seeing influential black women while growing up, Carefree Black Girls covers a lot of ground. It’s even a micro-memoir, with the author regularly reflecting on life and all it has asked her to endure on the way to writing this very book. It’s still powerful to see black women allow themselves vulnerability and share their struggles with mental health, whether that looks like binge eating or suicide attempts.

In fact, it’s this intimacy which casts the book’s prominent public figures in a new light. For example, the author documents her struggles with body dysmorphia in dating apps where sexual expectations are projected onto black women’s bodies. I, myself, have noticed how when people come across me, particularly on social media, their impulse is to comment on my physical appearance. A picture doesn’t always tell a thousand words. Take Lizzo, for example, who is constantly speaking out on how her body is the sole subject of her career. The chapter “Body” quotes from her acceptance speech at the 2019 MTV VMA Awards where she said:

It’s so hard trying to love yourself in a world that doesn’t love you back. So I want to take this opportunity right now to just feel good as hell, we deserve to feel good as hell.

It’s often only through these entertainers, figures like the “Bodak Yellow” rapper Cardi B and the iconic “Scary Spice” Mel B, that we have an opportunity to learn who we want to be and can be in this world. “[They] helped me to form impressions about my sexuality, my mind, my voice,” shares Zeba. Their influence on our ideas of fashion, beauty, and lifestyle is immeasurable.

Young girls and women of all backgrounds style themselves after Nicki Minaj, Teyana Taylor, and SZA.

But this influence runs deeper than us and having role models. “On Instagram, baddies and models of every ethnicity rock fashion and beauty trends that Black women either created or popularised,” the author states. Young girls and women of all backgrounds style themselves after Nicki Minaj, Teyana Taylor, and SZA, using social media to fabricate the image of a carefree black girl without understanding what it truly is to be one. I see it in the sudden popularity of the things they previously mocked: big lips, big gold hoops, long fake nails, big bums, gel-slicked buns. I could go on. 

Social media is “a great place for pretending, for playing, for projecting” alternative images; a great place for copying our features and pasting them onto someone whiter, thinner. The truth is that no matter how much they attempt to mute our voices and discredit our influence, pop culture is irrelevant without black women. The media can’t keep our names out of their mouths, documenting our every move, look, and action. The world longs to know how we not only survive to tell the tale but thrive—and create.

I finished this book buoyed in this knowledge, but also questioning the possibility of being carefree. What is joy in a society that requires me to constantly be engaged in suppressing the labels and narratives it throws at me? Are we free to be our unique selves outside of the tropes and stereotypes the media creates about us?

by Nyasha Oliver

NYASHA OLIVER is a writer based in London. She founded Nyam with Ny in 2020 to introduce more people to spicy dishes and recipes from around the world. Alongside writing about food, she is passionate about inspiring Black women to live in Asia through her stories and personal experiences. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Carefree Black Girls: Black Women are popular cultureCarefree Black Girls: A Celebration of Black Women in Popular Culture by Zeba Blay
Published by Square Peg on 21 October 2021
Genres: Cultural criticism, Non-fiction
Pages: 240
four-stars

In 2013, Zeba Blay was one of the first people to coin the viral term “carefreeblackgirls” on Twitter. It was, as she says, “a way to carve out a space of celebration and freedom for black women online.” In this collection of essays, Blay expands on that initial idea by looking at the significance of influential black women throughout history, including Josephine Baker, Michelle Obama, Rihanna, and Cardi B. Incorporating her own personal experiences as well as astute analysis of these famous women, Blay presents an empowering and celebratory portrait of black women and their effect on American culture. She also examines the many stereotypes that have clung to black women throughout history, whether it is the Mammy, the Angry Black Woman, or more recently, the Thot.

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