Thick: And Other Essays

“We weren’t killing the personal essay so much as were killing those who used the personal essay to become a problem.” 

McMillan Cottom identifies herself as someone who is willing to “become a problem,” or, to challenge Whiteness and how it decides whose voices are valuable and worthy of listening to. McMillan Cottom suggests that criticisms of the personal essay as a genre are a way of minimizing Black women’s authority, as its one of the few genres where women and people of color are considered authorities. When used in a nuanced way, the personal essay is actually a vehicle for larger structural criticisms.

“In a modern society, who is allowed to speak with authority is a political act.” 

The perception of authority and how it is denied to Black women is a core concern that runs through McMillan Cottom’s essays. Authority is controlled by Whiteness, which defines who is considered an expert. McMillan Cottom argues that Black women’s voices are needed in society and they have to be more valued. In the context where Whiteness gatekeeps who is considered an expert, a Black woman claiming space as a public intellectual is a political art of defiance.

“Fixing my feet means knowing that I am no one’s beauty queen and few people’s idea of an intellectual, public or otherwise, and showing up anyway.” 

McMillan Cottom was born pigeon-toed and bow-legged. As a result, she had to “fix her feet” by learning how to correct the placement of her feet as she walks. She uses this experience as an analogy for how Black women have to adjust themselves to move through the world. She recognizes that she isn’t what people consider an authority or expect from a Professional Smart Person, but she keeps writing and claiming space anyway. In doing so, she hopes to shift public perceptions and claim more space for Black women.

“I was not beautiful and could never—no matter what was in fashion to serve the interests of capital and power—become beautiful.” 

McMillan Cottom shows how beauty isn’t about looks but upholding the status quo. Beauty is tied to Whiteness as a way of reinforcing White cultural norms. She situates beauty within capitalism as a system which needs an underclass to exploit and promotes consumption as an answer to problems. However, she argues that no amount of consumption or treatments can make someone more beautiful because it is a category that is designed to exclude Blackness. This analysis is reflective of her overall approach, which situates individual experiences or preferences within larger structures to consider how society shapes our lives.

“Indeed, any system of oppression must allow exceptions to validate itself as meritorious. How else will those who are oppressed by the system internalize their own oppression?” 

Many Americans believe that America is a meritocracy. Despite inequality being constructed along the lines of race, gender, and class, the blame is shifted to the individual. Occasionally, people who are not of a high social status are granted access into higher social strata. This does not suggest that the world is a meritocracy; rather, it reveals a method of maintaining existing systems of power by creating a context where people internalize their own oppression and blame themselves. The exception proves the rule.

“Deal with that rather than dealing with me.” 

As a prominent public intellectual, McMillan Cottom gets a lot of feedback, both positive and negative. After her essay on Miley Cyrus, she receives a lot of angry responses from Black women who suggest that she is internalizing racism because she says she isn’t beautiful. In this quote, she responds to this criticism by telling people to address the structural problems rather than directing their anger at her. This summarizes her larger critique which situates individuals within larger systems of power and oppression, suggestion that racism, sexism, and classism are structural problems, not problems of individual prejudice.

“In the way that gender has so structured how we move through the intersecting planes of class and status and income and wealth that shape our world and our selves, so does race.” 

McMillan Cottom’s essays link feminism, race, and class oppression into an intersectional critique. Throughout her book, she shows how privilege functions to preserve social hierarchies, and she analyzes how and why this happens. Throughout her essays, she frequently reminds the reader of the importance of considering intersecting systems of power and oppression, nuancing her critique.

“Knowing the difference is part of getting free.” 

In her essay on beauty, McMillan Cottom redefines ugliness and beauty, and concludes that we can only free ourselves from the violence of this system by understanding the difference and recognizing that beauty as a concept is fundamentally racist. McMillan Cottom suggests that change is possible, but it will come from dismantling Whiteness, not from Whiteness expanding what it considers valuable.

“All the busywork produced by the technological society perversely creates new ways for technology to make our anxiety a profitable extractive regime.” 

McMillan Cottom’s essays are wide-ranging and explore day-to-day things like new technologies alongside larger, historical questions like the reproduction of social inequality. In this quote, McMillan Cottom describes the inefficiency of LinkedIn and how it reflects increased anxiety around career, precarity, and social inequality. Technological companies are corporations that exploit our fears to create profit.

“Sociologists try to figure out how ideologies like race and gender and class are so sticky. How is it that we have laid bodies down in streets, challenged patriarchy in courts, bled for fair wages, and still inequalities persist? The easiest answer is that racism and sexism and class warfare are resilient and necessary for global capitalism. The easy answer is not wrong, but it does not always tell us the whys and what-fors of how a middle-class black woman getting care in the good part of town in the United States of America has the same health outcome as a black woman anywhere in the colonized world. Of course, black women know why intuitively.” 

In “Dying to Be Competent,” McMillan Cottom shows how racism impacts Black women’s healthcare, especially in childbirth. The perception that Black women are incompetent results in a worse standard of care. This links back to a larger criticism that she introduces in her first essay, which centers on whose voices are respected, and the political and social implications of this perception. Undermining the knowledge of Black women is fundamentally racist and effects their health.

“It might seem that the culture’s perennial strong woman would also be competent. But incompetent and superhero do not actually conflict in the context of essential notions about gender, race, class, and hierarchy.” 

In popular culture, Black women are often described as superheroes who are strong and play a supporting role in other people’s lives. This trope does not mean that people respect or value Black women’s expertise or labor, however, as they are still understood as being supporting players. Black women are understood as being superheroes who do labor for other people and, at the same time, incompetent. This is another way that Black women are undermined.

“Being structurally incompetent injects friction into every interaction, between people, and between people and organizations, and between organizations and ideologies. Frictionless living is the promise of neoliberal capital—that is, if you are on the winning side of power. But when black women in the United States are dying trying to give birth and their babies are dying trying to get born, not simply because of poverty but because the grotesque accumulation of capital in the West is predicated on our structural incompetence, then we can see the ends of hypercapitalism in daily life.” 

Technology, apps, and other systems are designed to promise “frictionless living.” However, this only applies to people who have privilege. Capitalism requires an underclass whose labor it can exploit. Structural incompetence is one method of shifting the blame from the system to the individual. Black women are particularly disadvantaged in this context. 

“That is how black feminism knows the future.” 

McMillan Cottom’s essays have a readable, direct tone. One of her stylistic choices is to end her essays with a short, punchy sentence. This quote concludes “Dying to Be Competent,” and is reflective of her writing style. McMillan Cottom identifies as a Black feminist and her theoretical approach reflects these commitments.

“It is to be intimate with some white persons but to critically withhold faith in white people categorically. It is to anticipate white people’s emotions and fears and grievances, because their issues are singularly our problem. To know our whites is to survive without letting bitterness rot your soul.” 

Whiteness is a major theme in Thick. In this quote, McMillan Cottom describes how Black people have to know Whiteness as a method of survival. This includes anticipates what lengths White people will go to maintain the power of Whiteness. Black line is shaped by Whiteness in ways that are inescapable.

“But, first, just what kind of black am I?” 

McMillan Cottom explores both Blackness and Whiteness throughout her essays. She most directly addresses the idea of Blackness in her essay “Black Is Over (Or, Special Black).” She shows how her changing class position conflicted with her Blackness, and the pressure she received to perform a different kind of Blackness. When she enters into White dominant spaces, she is forced to define her Blackness. This shows how Whiteness uses Blackness as a pillar against which it defines itself.

“A mausoleum of whiteness. So very white.” 

McMillan Cottom goes to Emory for graduate school, which is her first time in a predominantly White space. She describes the extensive use of marble as being like a mausoleum. Mausoleum, which is a burial tomb, is a word choice that evokes cemeteries, funerals, and death. While White marble is used in funeral monuments, it is also considered a very desirable material due to its beauty, prominently used in museums, for example. McMillan Cottom uses the phrasing “a mausoleum of Whiteness” to suggest that the campus was an unsettling place due to its Whiteness. The short sentences add dynamism to her prose while the word choice layers on additional meanings.

“If you think that I am intelligent and ambitious and reasoned and formidable, if you think one good thing about me at all, then I insist that you reconcile that with me just being regular black-black.” 

McMillan Cottom has a provocative writing style that often addresses the reader directly. In this quote, she uses “you” to signal to the reader that the implicit bias she is calling out in the essay relates to them as well. This invites the reader to reflect on the ways in which they may (often unintentionally) enforce racist tropes. 

“Finally, for now, I have decided on being as black-black as I can be.” 

McMillan Cottom argues that Whiteness is a problem and needs to be dismantled. In this quote, McMillan Cottom claims her identity as a “domestic Black” with pride, stating that she has no interest in making her Blackness more desirable to Whiteness. This is an example of how she rejects the ways that Whiteness defines Blackness. In doing so, she points to pathways for people to move away from Whiteness.

“There was the Starbucks manager who called the police on the black male patrons who did not buy a cup of coffee quickly enough for her liking. Alison Ettel did not like the young black girl who was selling cold waters on a hot day on a public sidewalk, so she pretended to call the police on her.” 

McMillan Cottom’s essays often respond to current events and news stories. “The Price of Fabulousness” documents how Black people are profiled when they shop, linking race and class. She begins the essay by listing a series of incidents where the police were called on Black people doing innocuous things. As a formal device, the list introduces repetition which allows McMillan Cottom to show a larger pattern of discrimination.

“My friends told me that once they desired you, then you could not be a victim. My cousin said once you were a ho, you could not be a victim. I already knew all of these things by the time I was married, but still it was my father who taught me best of all.” 

Black women face interlocking systems of oppression that align with race, class, and gender. Black girlhood is defined by male desires and stereotypes about Black female sexuality, which makes Black girls vulnerable to male violence and less likely to be protected by both families and institutions. McMillan Cottom learns this while she is a young girl as her family and friends devalue the experiences of Black girls. Her essay is structured around a series of conversations with men where Black women are blamed for the violence enacted upon them.

“You don’t manage your diabetes because someone on the block will pay you for the test strips, you go to the hospital with the poors. You cannot get all of your blood pressure pills because you split them with your girlfriend who makes $145 a month too much for the good Medicaid, you go to the hospital with the poors. You rob Peter to pay Paul but Peter is broke too, you go to the hospital with the poors.”

In “Dying to Be Competent,” McMillan Cottom outlines how Black people get worse healthcare. However, access to healthcare shapes many aspects of Black life. In this quote from another essay, “Black Girlhood, Interrupted,” she describes how socio-economic factors limit access to healthcare. Because of poverty, many Black people do not have access to preventative care and people have to wait until they are extremely ill to get treatment. Inadequate access to healthcare disadvantages Black people.

“If there is any difference, it is that I try really hard not to write dumb things. I cannot speak for Mr. Brooks.” 

McMillan Cottom employs a conversational writing style. In this quote, she compares herself to David Brooks, humorously calling into question the legitimacy of his opinion column. While her tone is cheeky, she makes a larger argument that Black women would not be able to get away with writing as poorly as Brooks. Black women’s expertise is frequently dismissed, especially when compared to White men who are allowed to fail and write half-baked takes.

“That is why the first, best criteria for most entry-level jobs in media—especially at prestige media companies—is a family wealthy enough to afford you the unpaid internship you will have to take to get your foot in the door. You know who is statistically, systematically unlikely to have that kind of family wealth?” 

McMillan Cottom often uses rhetorical questions as a stylistic device. In this section, she explains that social inequality is reproduced because of opportunity hoarding. People who have status and prestige use the system to make sure that their children have advantages. Unpaid internships are a primary way that wealthy people maintain advantages in the job market. The answer to her rhetorical question is that Black women are especially disadvantaged.