Matriarchal Moment – Women Have Earned the Right to Be Idle, Unkempt and Mediocre

The message that I got as a young black girl in South Africa was that there was no moment to be idle. This stood in the way of me being me.

First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.

“Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid is one of my favourite prose-poems discovered in the past year. “Girl” is written in the tone of a matriarch, a mother or grandmother passing on advice to a daughter or granddaughter. The advice imparted is both a useful and an admonishing guide on how to be a worthy black girl.

I approached the poem with reticence. The title brought up all the ways I fell short of the societal definition and expectations of a girl. Anything that I was told I had to do by virtue of being a girl was an affront to me. Discordant with the beat of my own drum.

Some of the advice I received growing up from well-meaning women in my life were a variation of the following: do not sit like that; do not eat like that; do not be loud; do not be forward; do not ask questions; do not be aggressive; do not leave your hair crazy.

By Daily Maverick.