55 pages • 1 hour read
Zakiya Dalila HarrisThe Other Black Girl
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Creating Uncle Tom: The Cycle of Systemic and Internalized Racism
The Other Black Girl models the ways in which systemic racism can produce internalized racism, which, in turn, perpetuates systemic racism.
Examples of the horrors of systemic racism are embedded throughout the novel: Nella frequently reads about overt forms of anti-Black racism and violence such as police brutality, redlining, and harmful media campaigns. However, she also experiences hideously ordinary forms of systemic racism in the workplace every day: structural inequalities and biased hiring practices that limit the number of open positions available to people of color; white fragility and the irrational defensiveness with which white people respond when someone points out their bias; the constant microaggressions of liberal white women like Sophie who whisper the word Black and refer to “those people.”
In addition to systemic racism, Harris explores the insidious ways in which Black people, after years of exposure to these racist ideologies, can internalize the notion of racial hierarchies and reproduce racial bias. To illustrate the characteristics and effects of internalized racism, Harris invokes the trope of Uncle Tom. Taken from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, “Uncle Tom” is a derogatory term that refers to an enslaved Black character who was excessively subservient to his white master. In other words, an “Uncle Tom” is someone who adheres to cultural codes of Blackness that do not challenge white supremacy.
When Shani uses the term to describe OBGs in Part 3 and when Nella uses it to describe Hazel in Part 4, they are accusing these women of being utterly deferential to their white bosses. This deference temporarily serves the OBGs’ own interests—a job opportunity, a promotion—while reproducing the conditions of systemic racism for themselves and everyone else in the long term. This meaning aligns with Lynn’s definition in Part 2, in which she describes OBGs as “young women [who are] suddenly no longer beholden to anyone but themselves and the white people they [work] for” who are “so obsessed with success—and with taking down any Black women who [gets] in their way” (229). That obsession with success stems from a fear of scarcity: If there are only so many options available to Black women seeking employment, and if, as Hazel explains in Chapter 19, “there can only be one of us per office” (347), then it seems almost logical that OBGs should be ultracompetitive with other Black women. The flaw in this logic, however, is that job scarcity is a result of systemic racism, not the employment status of other Black women. Breaking the cycle of systemic and internalized racism, as Nella attempts to do in Chapter 2, requires recognizing these racist structures as the true source of oppression and working in solidarity to lift one another up instead of taking each other down.
Natural Hairapy: Seeking Solidarity in Black Female Experiences
One of the marks of a successful horror story is its ability to elicit pleasure as well as fear—often at the same time. In addition to staging moments of paranoia and conflict between Black female characters, Harris crafts many scenes in The Other Black Girl in which Black women supremely enjoy one another’s company and find ease in shared Black female experiences.
As critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw wrote in her 1989 article “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” Black women experience the world in ways that differ from the experiences of both white women and Black men (Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum, vol. 1989, no. 1, article 8). This is especially true for Nella and Hazel, who perpetually experience racial discrimination when working with white women at Wagner: Vera’s refusal to promote Nella because of her “extracurricular” participation in diversity meetings in Chapter 1; the white editorial assistants’ invasive questions about Hazel’s parents during the 1990s “crack epidemic” and War on Drugs in Chapter 11. These are not forms of discrimination that the white women at Wagner experience. The novel also explores the intersectional experience of being a Black woman through Nella’s interracial relationship with Owen: In Chapter 12, when Nella recalls being fetishized in college, it’s because she is both Black and a woman; in Chapter 16, when she calls out Owen for his privilege, it’s because he is both white and a man.
In contrast, Black women in the novel seek (and sometimes find) solidarity and solace in the presence of other Black women, who experience the world in similar ways. In Part 2, both Nella and Kendra Rae are envious of those who spent their college years immersed in Black culture with other Black women, and both women cherish the few Black friendships they have. Although their socioeconomic backgrounds are different, Nella and Malaika bond over the “Black Female Experience” of growing up with Black sitcoms (21). Additionally, although Nella considers Hazel a rival by Part 4, she finds momentary comfort in their “elongated physical contact” while Hazel works Smooth’d Out through her hair (311).
The pleasure that Nella and Kendra Rae (and by extension, the reader) find in these shared intergenerational memories of Black women doing one another’s hair is what makes Hazel’s betrayal so poignant and Diana’s use of hair grease to control Black women particularly horrifying. These are moments that should resonate with the “lilt of Black-girl solidarity” (342), but instead they have been coopted to convert Black women into shades of themselves, bringing pleasure and fear together in the perfect horror package.
“Many Ideas of Blackness” and Being “Black Enough”
In a May 2021 Entertainment Weekly interview, Harris explained that one of her goals for the novel is for “readers to hold many ideas of Blackness all at the same time” (Harris, Zakiya Dalila. “Zakiya Dalila Harris on her blockbuster debut The Other Black Girl: ‘I want readers to hold many ideas of Blackness at the same time.’” Interview by Seija Rankin. Entertainment Weekly, 2021). To her credit, Harris successfully presents Black characters who are each very different from one another: Although Nella and Malaika are best friends who share some Black female experiences, they come from different regions of the country and have different socioeconomic backgrounds. Although Diana and Kendra Rae grew up in the same city and had similar experiences, they developed different ideas about what success looks like in predominantly white workplaces. Although Nella and C.J. both work at Wagner, Nella’s class privilege allowed her to attend college and attain a white-collar job, while C.J., who grew up with less money and privilege, works in the mailroom to support his nieces and nephews. These characters have different family dynamics, educations, and motivations and priorities, but together they represent many ways of being Black.
As Harris demonstrates throughout the novel, there is nothing essentially “Black” about Black people, and narrow definitions of Blackness that hinge on negative associations can feed racist stereotypes. Colin Franklin’s portrayal of Shartricia as “nineteen and pregnant with her fifth child, with a baby daddy who was either a man named LaDarnell or a man named DeMontraine” (19), and Leonard’s “pickaninny” cover art are examples of the ways in which stereotypes of Blackness become warped and concretized through exploitative media representation. Harris challenges these stereotypes by presenting characters who embody “many ideas of Blackness.”
On the other hand, narrow definitions of Blackness that center around positive characteristics can also cause harm. For example, Nella is deeply insecure about her racial identity because she doesn’t feel “Black enough.” She views Harlem as an essentially Black place to grow up in, while she grew up in Connecticut surrounded by white friends. Nella views natural hair as an essentially Black symbol of beauty and power but didn’t begin to wear her hair natural until very recently. Nella holds herself to socially constructed standards of Blackness and feels a constant sense of inadequacy. According to Harris, however, Nella is no less Black because she grew up in Connecticut or because she can’t tie a head scarf. Instead, Nella represents one of many iterations of valid Black experiences found in (and outside) the novel.
