Perhaps I’m not the only one to feel a sense of horrifying dread and uncertainty whenever I see the words “claiming your identity.” It’s like a spool of thread that unravels with each self-reflecting question and guides you to various conclusions you might not have thought too deeply about otherwise. Maybe the visible traits are your starting point. Your Blackness and being a plus-sized woman are your bold claims. Or maybe your personality takes centre stage, dancing to your own beat yet cautious of the type of attention garnered. Regardless, there’s always layers to consider. Zeba Blay’s Carefree Black Girls is a collection of essays that guide the reader through the exploration and celebration of Black female identity. From the stereotypes to the historical roots that enshroud us, Black women still have a transformative and dominant influence on popular culture.

Each essay is distinct in its theme, but Zeba Blay intricately braids them together into cohesive sections. Her discussions range from the Black body and its back-and-forth between fetishization and desexualization, to the ways in which Black girlhood leads to children being constantly aware of their differences among their white peers. Blay uses her knowledge as a senior culture writer and her own experience with depression to add a deeper level of context and understanding to her words. She sees celebrities like Lizzo and Cardi B as Black women who are successful but still face a sense of constraint in being Black women, one for her body size and the other for not behaving like a celebrity should. This is a sad truth but one I agree with, nonetheless. A Black woman walks a tightrope between scorn and praise, yet even the appraisal seems to be in relation to how closely she mimics more “polite and favourable” people. Her white counterparts are often the basis of whether she’s deemed acceptable. 

Blay tactfully works through her understanding of Black female identity alongside her readers. The genuine representation that’s difficult to find and even harder to commemorate are the Black actresses like Viola Davis and Lupita Nyong’o for being darker than other actresses who’ve had less experience acting. She explores her feelings on Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Tatianna Hall and all other Black women’s deaths and how they echo into the distress the Black community has sadly grown accustomed to witnessing brutality and injustice.

Blay invites the reader to gather ’round the table and remove all pretences of following the expectations and biases that plague their steps. I personally love how she speaks to readers as if we’re long-time friends. She fosters an atmosphere between herself and us that allows important discussions of Black female identity to be natural, allowing room for suggestion and improvement as well as different ideas to interact. Blay provides a temporary balm from that weight; sharing all our thoughts and opinions of the Black female identity among other Black women. She artfully serves a sense of realization and perhaps the reawakening of how exhausted Black women are with needing to always have a backup plan, of needing to be cautious and wary of our words and how we present ourselves. We’re exhausted by wanting representation without tokenism or a clichéd mockery for others to solidify their uninformed assumptions. Collectively, we establish a space to air out grievances, biases and stereotypes that we’ve been accustomed to hiding within us. With this idea, we’re acknowledging them and their toll on us.

Interestingly enough, Blay opens up about her vulnerabilities in a way that Black women are often told not to in favour of appearing calm and collected. She speaks of past traumas, her opinions and everyday experiences in a way that you don’t acknowledge at first. But the more you read, the more your own vulnerabilities are brought to the forefront of your mind and how close to home her words are. Sometimes you don’t want to cross that territory and she knows this! The need to get away from something because of how similar it is to your own scenario. Yet, including the touchy subjects, she speaks of transformation, fluidity and how there’s always time — time for yourself, time to be happy, time to heal. That’s something that we often forget: these things take time.

I want to point out that she doesn’t provide only lighthearted insight into some grand epiphany of understanding Black female identity. She’s honest, brutally so. Blay provides the nitty gritty details, the process of healing and how a positive disposition takes work and reflection. But she, along with the reader, goes through the complicated mess of working through the negativity, including trauma, fatigue and injustices we’ve faced. As a result, we’re invited to step outside our own thoughts and reveal them to someone who understands you, even a little bit. I appreciate that, the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. To see who you are at your core is a healing process that’s neither easy or done immediately. We need to address the thoughts and feelings we’ve neglected. At the same time, she doesn’t end each essay with bleak words or a sense of helplessness, she offers well-thought out messages of care and recognition. You don’t realize how important that kindness is until you smile a bit at the warmth that eases the experience of self-reflection.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book to the point of commenting and relating to a lot of what Zeba Blay has written. My investment was solidified by the raw emotions, sincerity and the respectful yet critical commentary that she analyzes everyday scenarios with. Carefree Black Girls felt as if Blay was accompanying my own journey through painstaking honesty and heartwarming encouragement in understanding the complexity and inner workings of my identity as a Black woman.

Intersectionality will always be a constant discussion in regards to Black women and their experiences with injustice and our identity. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the only aspect to focus on. We deserve happiness and comfort in our own skin. We’re both carefree and deeply caring, almost one and the same. Carefree Black Girls provides this dualism of being able to voice the struggles of Black women while holding onto those positive moments and wanting to move beyond what is expected of us.