From one of the fiercest critics writing today, Morgan Jerkinsâ highly-anticipated collection of linked essays interweaves her incisive commentary on pop culture, feminism, black history, misogyny, and racism with her own experiences to confront the very real challenges of being a black woman todayâperfect for fans of Roxane Gayâs Bad Feminist, Rebecca Solnitâs Men Explain Things to Me, and Chimamanda Ngozie Adichieâs We Should All Be Feminists.
Morgan Jerkins is only in her twenties, but she has already established herself as an insightful, brutally honest writer who isnât afraid of tackling tough, controversial subjects. In This Will Be My Undoing, she takes on perhaps one of the most provocative contemporary topics: What does it mean to âbeââto live as, to exist asâa black woman today? This is a book about black women, but itâs necessary reading for all Americans.
Doubly disenfranchised by race and gender, often deprived of a place within the mostly white mainstream feminist movement, black women are objectified, silenced, and marginalized with devastating consequences, in ways both obvious and subtle, that are rarely acknowledged in our countryâs larger discussion about inequality. In This Will Be My Undoing, Jerkins becomes both narrator and subject to expose the social, cultural, and historical story of black female oppression that influences the black community as well as the white, male-dominated world at large.
Whether sheâs writing about Sailor Moon; Rachel Dolezal; the stigma of therapy; her complex relationship with her own physical body; the pain of dating when men say they donât âsee colorâ; being a black visitor in Russia; the specter of âthe fast-tailed girlâ and the paradox of black female sexuality; or disabled black women in the context of the âBlack Girl Magicâ movement, Jerkins is compelling and revelatory.