This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jerkins

This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jerkins

I’ve been reading a lot more books written by Black women about the experience of being Black. It started with bell hooks and it was like a lightbulb went off while I was reading. I was not alone. Even though my experience as a Black woman is my own, I was not alone. When I thought I was losing my mind, when I thought I was drowning or suffocating, reading her words even though they were decades old made me realize that I was not alone. The more books I read by Black women, the more I realize that our collective Black experience is a unique one and that regardless of our differences we all share certain experiences.

Reading Jerkins work, the work of a young Black women, a few years younger than me, reinforces those ideas. Her collection of essays is about her unique experiences in many different arenas while living as a Black woman. It’s important that I mention that she is indeed both Black and a woman because those are two parts of her identity that she can never ignore or neglect. Regardless of what others may believe, she just like myself, is unable to separate from those parts of her identity, unable of just existing in this skin or this body or this hair and not acknowledging it. Jerkins essays about her experiences are raw, vulnerable, honest and deliberately written. She is not hiding from her truth and she is forcing readers to recognize it as just that, her truth.

I related with much of what Jerkins had to say. But this was definitely one of those experiences where I could wholly examine someone else’s lived experience because it is so different from my own and learn something from it. I appreciate that. I also appreciate the amount of research that went into providing historical context throughout. Those who aren’t as educated on the African diaspora will finds themselves learning more about not only the experiences of Black women but about Black history in general and how we are where we are today. I definitely recommend this book. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.