Thick: And Other Essays

In this essay, McMillan Cottom explores the question, “what would it take for a Black girl to be a victim?” (182). She outlines moments where men in her family reveal how Black girlhood is contingent on male desire and male perceptions. She writes, “if one is ‘ready’ for what a man wants from her, then by merely existing she has consented to his treatment of her. Puberty becomes permission” (183). All women are subject to male violence, but Black girls are viewed as more adult than their White peers and are more likely to be considered “asking for it” or “ready for it.” She cites a survey of public opinion that found that a majority of people believed that White girls needed more nurturing and protection than Black girls. The perception of being grown thus has consequences even if you aren’t actually grown because it suggests that Black girls are responsible for the desires of adults. These expectations are reinforced in the legal system, which treats Black girls like adults. When reporting sexual abuse, people have to prove both that the assault happened—which is a high burden of truth—and that they didn’t deserve it. Black women face other issues in proving assault. For example, photographic evidence is often used in court, but bruises have to be identifiable by the naked eye, and bruises are less visible on dark skin.

When McMillan Cottom is a teenager, her cousin defends Mike Tyson, who had been found guilty of rape, saying “Y’all act like she’s a woman,” my cousin said. “She is—excuse me, Auntie—a ho” (179). He blames the young woman for bringing down a successful Black man, while dividing women into women and “hoes.” This is a pivotal moment in McMillan Cottom’s life: “It was then that I learned that black girls like me can never truly be victims of sexual predators. And that the men in my life were also men in the world. Men can be your cousin, men can be Mike Tyson, and men can be both of them at the same time” (180). She describes how her family’s dismissal of Black girls as “hoes” is mirrored in the lack of attention paid to Black girls in society. President Obama creates a task for Black boys, but it took months of lobbying by Black women to get a similar one established for them, and it did not receive the same levels of funding or attention. Charlamagne Tha God is another example of how Black women are subordinated to Black men who have made it. Charlamagne Tha God talks about “beating the case,” which involved a 15-year-old girl who said she was drugged and raped at a party hosted by Charlamagne. Charlamagne won the case. He regularly undermines rape culture and the MeToo Movement. McMillan Cottom quotes both R. Kelly and Charlamagne admitting to things that McMillan Cottom considers abuse, concluding it’s hard to image what would qualify as rape to those two.

Limited access to healthcare also surfaces in this essay. She describes her dad as being in the hospital with a “case of the poors” (183), where poverty means that you can’t prevent illnesses, so you have to wait until you are quite sick to get treatment.  McMillan Cottom also draws attention to representation in literature. She is an active reader, and the most popular books when she is a girl are Ramona Quimby, Sweet Valley High, and the Baby-Sitters Club, all of which centered on White protagonists. To read about experiences of Black girlhood, McMillan Cottom had to read biographies about Black women.