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This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope
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65/99
Critics
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Scholars
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Rating
34/99
Volume
86/99
Rating
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About This Book
From a fierce and humorous new voice comes a relevant, insightful, and riveting collection of personal essays on the richness and resilience of black girl culture—for readers of Samantha Irby, Roxane Gay, Morgan Jerkins, and Lindy West. Shayla Lawson is major. You don't know who she is. Yet. But that's okay. She is on a mission to move black girls like herself from best supporting actress to a starring role in the major narrative. Whether she's taking on workplace microaggressions or upending racist stereotypes about her home state of Kentucky, she looks for the side of the story that isn't always told, the places where the voices of black girls haven't been heard. The essays in This is Major ask questions like: Why are black women invisible to AI? What is "black girl magic"? Or: Am I one viral tweet away from becoming Twitter famous? And: How much magic does it take to land a Tinder date? With a unique mix of personal stories, pop culture observations, and insights into politics and history, Lawson sheds light on these questions, as well as the many ways black women and girls have influenced mainstream culture—from their style, to their language, and even their art—and how "major" they really are. Timely, enlightening, and wickedly sharp, This Is Major places black women at the center—no longer silenced, no longer the minority.
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Reviews
"Lawson seamlessly uses cultural colloquialisms meant to suppress women and gives them new meaning ..."
"Lawson's essays—some traditional, some experimental in form—deftly challenge the notion of '#BlackGirlMagic' as an extension of the stereotype of black women as exotic beasts of burden unworthy of protection, as body parts and hairstyles to be appropriated."
"Poet Lawson...the director of creative writing at Amherst College, offers personal stories and cultural observations in this insightful collection of 17 essays about being a black woman in the U.S ..."
"The result is a sense of familiarity between the writer and the Black women who pick up this book ..."
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