In her debut book of poetry, Alabama writer Tania Russell unpacks the adultification of Black girls

Page nine of Tania Russell’s poetry book “be gentle with Black girls” has the definition of the word “fast”: a girl who is perceived to be engaged in any sexual activities or behaviors.

She puts that definition into context with a poem:

“Look at her fast tail, wearing those shorts.

That girl is fast; she knew what she was getting herself into.”

For a lot of Black women, that use of the word “fast” is familiar. It’s a pejorative term that suggests girls who don’t act innocent enough for their age– whether it’s wearing clothing or accessories that adults consider “too grown” or “too revealing,” or acting too outspoken, flirty, or friendly– deserve to suffer repercussions for their perceived adult actions.

“Within the black community, calling our girls ‘fast’ or suggesting that they ‘want to be grown’ and deserve whatever consequences they face for their choices ages them and robs them of their innocence,” activist and speaker A. Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez wrote in a 2020 story for the New York Times.

The concept of “fast tailed girls” is one of the ideas Russell is dedicated to dismantling, both through her own writing, as well as through the youth writing workshops she teaches.

“I would define myself as someone who wants to equip children with the knowledge of how to own themselves and how to trust their gut and trust their intuition,” said Russell.

Tania Russell at the Birmingham Museum of Art

Tania Russell poses in front of artist Kerry James Marshall’s painting “School of Beauty, School of Culture” at the Birmingham Museum of Art. (Courtesy, Tania Russell)

Russell teaches workshops in partnership with The Flourish Alabama, a non-profit organization devoted to nurturing and mentoring artists through projects, performances, and workshops. This year, she began working with students at Carver High School.

Russell, who majored in psychology at Berea College, says one creative writing class catalyzed her journey in the literary arts.

“It was with Crystal Wilkinson and it was called ‘Shake Loose My Skin.’ That was definitely transformative for me, because she was the first full-time Black artist that I knew. I was like, ‘Oh we exist? We’re out here!’ Because it seemed like a fairytale to me,” said Russell.

Inspired by Black psychologists and feminist authors including Dr. Valeria Watkins, bell hooks, Ntozake Shange, and historian Nubia Adisa, Russell taps into a fusion of literary arts and psychology that inform her writing.

“Psychology helps me with my writing because I think for me, I take the perspective of taking facts and using the facts as metaphors. That’s my favorite thing. I feel like work always reflects some sort of research because that’s what really inspires me.”

Last year, Russell read a report called “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood.” The comprehensive 2017 report by the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty found that adults view Black girls as less innocent than their white peers, particularly in the age range of 5 to 14. The report builds on similar research that explored the adult perception of young Black boys. The concept, which researchers call “adultification” does not consider the stage of childhood as a mediating variable in the behavior of Black youth behavior. In a snapshot of the data, the study also summarized the findings of the survey.

Compared to white girls of the same age, survey participants perceived that:

• Black girls need less nurturing

• Black girls need less protection

• Black girls need to be supported less

• Black girls need to be comforted less

• Black girls are more independent

• Black girls know more about adult topics

• Black girls know more about sex

At the time, researchers said the study represented a key step in addressing the disparate treatment of Black girls in public systems. The findings, they said, translate to disproportionate rates of punitive treatment for Black girls in both the education and juvenile justice systems.

The study also functioned as a call to action. Researchers recommended providing individuals who have authority over children with training on adultification and ways to address adultification bias against Black girls. They also challenged other investigators to continue to develop new studies to investigate the effects of adultification on Black girls.

Although Russell found the study surprising, she wasn’t at all shocked by the findings. She was surprised that the themes of adultification were so commonplace.

“I think sometimes, because we don’t talk about it, we think certain experiences are unique to us or unique to our family. Because it’s so normalized, you know? But then when I looked at (the study), I was surprised, but also I thought. ‘I see this every day. The only difference is now that I have language to ground it in,’ ” said Russell. “Reading it, like evidence with data, really grounded it for me that this is dysfunctional.”

Inspired by the study, Russell spent six months penning “be gentle with Black girls,” her debut book of narrative poetry. Released this year, the book invites readers to explore the humanity of Black girls and explore the challenges Black girls face when they are forced into womanhood.

My motivation behind this book is that sometimes I feel like, in Black culture, we’re so resilient,” said Russell. “Sometimes we don’t take a moment to really realize that we can change some of the things that we face. And one of the things that I think would help us just to improve emotionally is to address the adultification bias.”

High Tea open Mic

Tania Russell recites a selection of poetry at The Flourish’s High Tea event at The Little London pub in Homewood. ( Shauna Stuart for AL.com)

While “be gentle with Black girls,” tackles the erosion of Black childhood, the book isn’t a pity party. Rather, the collection of poems doubles down on the need for both Black girls and women to celebrate joy and wrap themselves in love.

The poems in “be gentle with Black girls” address puberty, parenthood, and generational trauma through a set of characters including Deja, a young Black girl coming of age, and Ms. Mae, an older, conservative woman in the church. Russell also pens tribute to her grandmother, Fannie Pearl.

A selection of Tania Russell's book "be gentle with Black girls"

(Courtesy, Tania Russell)

Russell will give a reading of “be gentle with Black girls” on Thursday, Sept. 22 at the Central Branch of the Birmingham Public Library. The program, which starts at 6 p.m., will also be live streamed on the Birmingham Public Library Facebook Page. The reading is part of be gentle with black girls: Addressing Adultification Bias and Protecting Black Childhood, the first program in the Birmingham Public Library’s Local Author Series. Earlier this month, the library announced that the community group Friends of the Birmingham Public Library received a $2,315 mini grant from the Alabama Humanities Alliance. In the announcement, the library said the financial award helped to fund the “be gentle with Black girls” reading and panel event, which will include a panel discussion with Alabama poet laureate Ashley M. Jones; DeJuana Thompson, the President and CEO of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; The University of Alabama Women’s Studies professor Lauren Whatley; and poet Queen daPoetess, the co-owner of the Majesty Lounge in Bessemer.

On a recent afternoon, AL.com caught up with Tania Russell to talk about “be gentle with Black girls.” The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Talk about the title of the book “be gentle with Black girls.”

Tania Russell: I was working on a poem in a workshop with one of my favorite writers. Her name is Jasmine Sims. I was talking about the book and I said something like, “I just want it to be a reminder that people need to be gentle with black girls.” And she said “That needs to be on a shirt.” And I thought that could also be the title of the book, because it’s also a call to action.

Then after I completed the book, I was listening to somebody else and they were talking about the fruits of the spirit and that’s when it really hit me. It came full circle for me. It’s called ” be gentle with Black girls” because we live in this “Christian” society. But where’s the fruit for the most vulnerable of our population, which are black children who are being mistreated at disproportionate rates? Where’s the fruit of gentleness for them? For all Black Americans, really. So I feel like that’s really what it is. America, if you say you’re for liberation… if you say you’re for all people being equal or having an equitable environment, we need to see that.

Obviously, you’ve written many descriptions of the book. But now that we’re talking, tell me a description.

T.R: So in my own words, the book really is a mirror for certain sections of our culture that say Black women are sufficient by the time other people identify them as women, not by the time they identify themselves as women. And so it really holds up a mirror to how we treat other Black women, how we treat other Black girls and how we hold ourselves up to this standard, without actually taking a minute and saying, “Am I even loving you right now?”

The study also addresses the origins of adultification in chattel slavery and white supremacy. Is “be gentle with Black girls” also a call to action for people who aren’t Black?

T.R: Yes! So the larger picture, when you widen the scope, is a call for people who work with Black girls and Black women to take a minute, rid themselves of the stereotypes and say, “These women have a story.” And there’s not really room for us to tell our stories like other minorities have. Other minorities get spaces wherever, and they get validated. But as Black women, we’re taught to be silent in order to kind of carry our pain with grace. And within that, we kind of stomach all of these lies of how we are portrayed. Because you can’t fight every battle. Like you only get so many chances to fight your own battles and you have to pick it wisely. So I really want people who are coworkers, who are teachers, (who work in the) healthcare system–because these are where are lot of disparities are really latent– to say, if this Black woman is coming to you and she’s articulating her frustrations in a way that you might be threatened, that’s not really a reflection of her. That’s a reflection of you. And instead of saying, “You need to calm down”, you need to ask what’s going on and to really see her as a human being. The heart of it is that we need to see each other as human beings. And when you, adultify someone, you strip away their story.

Talk about some of the themes of the book. You address puberty, sexuality, generational trauma, and body image. You also weave in themes of cooking and food.

T.R: So again, going back to my history with sociology, when I was writing these books and constructing different characters, I really wanted to incorporate different women that I’ve met along my journey. And I wanted everyone to feel seen. So, I’ll start with body image, because I talk about that all the time. I feel like nowadays, when we talk about eating disorders –whether it’s binging or restricting– people don’t include Black women in that conversation. And I know so many Black women who have struggled with eating disorders. And I am of the opinion that each side deserves the same amount of support and empathy or sympathy, because at the core of it, their needs aren’t getting met. So I think, for me, that was definitely something important to highlight.

And this is definitely a Southern-influenced book. Not all Black people live in the urban South. Some of us live in the deep South. So I really wanted to reflect that in terms of how we see God and how we see love for ourselves. I wanted to ask the question, “How do we mistreat our bodies and say we love God in the South?”

And that just was an interesting conversation for me. I felt like we don’t ask that question all the time. Because we’ll go praise and sing hallelu and then not tend to ourselves, whether we’re indulging or restricting and not really seeing ourselves as image bearers.

Tania Russell at Studio 2500

Tania Russell at Studio 2500 Gallery in Birmingham (Courtesy, Tania Russell)

So, you have some recurring female characters in this book. From Deja to Ms. Mae. Let’s talk about Deja first.

T.R: So, for Deja’s character I wanted her to be the core of the story because I wanted to ground it so it seemed more real. Again, going back to restoring humanity, and I wanted you to be able to track how you get this little girl in a classroom who’s being told that because she’s rolling her eyes that then she’s not deserving of having a good education or being supported in the classroom. And she also experiences challenges with body image.

A lot of the research I’ve done and stories I’ve read are just heartbreaking. I remember a story I read about a Black girl who got into an argument with another student. And the teacher not only removed her from the classroom, but removed her from the building. And it was the day before winter break, so it was cold outside. And the teacher left her there. And the little girl got up and started walking home by herself. Mind you, I think she was in the third grade and she said on her way home, she contemplated committing suicide it was so hard. And that’s what I really want people to get. You start with these microaggressions within the school. You get it in the church, you get it at home. So where are Black girls supposed to go to find a sense of relief? That’s the real question. We can’t constantly be wearing the mask everywhere we go.

So, talk about Ms. Mae. Was she somebody from your childhood, or is she the embodiment of older women who are constantly advising young girls? For example, a lot of us can name an older lady who is very judgmental and likes to give unsolicited advice, a lot of which tends to be out of touch.

T.R: I think it’s definitely a piecing together of different women that I know. It’s really an archetype. I hate to create an archetype, but I kind of did it because I felt like it would be effective. There are older women who believe that they have this advice, but sometimes I wanted to address, too, that they also didn’t get a childhood. And so they’re coming from that space, even if they don’t realize it. But we have to acknowledge that too, because they have healing to do as well. Not just the girls. There’s healing for both.

Do you remember when you first learned the concept of being fast? Like being a fast-tailed girl or being womanish. Do you remember how old you were?

T.R: For me, I was definitely what people referred to as a “good girl.” But I remember when I was being misinterpreted. I think it’s kind of hard to say, because when it’s ingrained in your culture, it’s hard to remember the starting point. I want to say maybe church. Maybe someone was talking about kissing or something like that. And they said something like, “Oh she just fast.” And the girl they were talking about was probably a teenager. You know, that’s part of being a teenager is that you’re interested in other people and you want to explore that side of your sexuality. And instead of educating people on how to do that safely and how to select people to be, you know, healthy partners. It’s just definitely shamed. And I just feel like that’s bizarre to me.

But then for me personally, I don’t think I’ve ever been labeled as fast myself because I did fit in that good girl stereotype, but I remember one time it was award season in middle school. And I remember I was wearing heels and dresses to school, like for the week straight, because it was award week and I was poppin’. I was getting my awards and I’m looking cute.

And my grandma was just like, “Something is wrong with her! Something is wrong with her! She’s wearing heels to school every day!” And I think, honestly, something did not compute to her that it was awards season and I was just dressing up. And the heels weren’t even stilettos. They were, like, my mom’s winter heeled boots or something like that. So, that was my first interaction where I thought, “Am I being shamed for dressing in a feminine way?”

So I don’t have a terribly traumatizing story. Now as an adult, I do see girls who have been traumatized or abused being called fast, but no one is talking about the men in the situation who’ve taken advantage of these girls. I think that goes back to how we talk about sexuality in the Black community community in general. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I have the answers to why it’s so shame-based. But there is definitely a lot of shame that ends up coming back to haunt us.

Thanks to social media, particularly Instagram reels and Tik Tok, teenagers and younger women are making videos that unpack memories of being told they were “fast” or “acting grown.” In a TikTok that has over 400,000 likes, a creator named Taylor Drayton talked about a time when female family members asked why her mother allowed her to wear red nail polish. In the video, she reenacted the litany of statements the women told her: red nail polish was the color that “whores” wear; that she needed to wear a color more age appropriate; and she was inviting male attention. It was part of a series called “Things women in my family said to me as a child that just don’t make sense.”

T.R: I’m not really on TikTok, but I definitely say that while I wasn’t called fast, I knew about the rules. I knew that because I am very bottom heavy, I knew I was not supposed to be wearing shorts. Like ever, period. I knew that if I wore those shorts, I would be called fast because I was showing off a part of my body that was kind of more developed. And it wasn’t seen as ladylike. So I definitely think that I’m grateful for spaces like TikTiok that kind of highlight how silly those types of conversations are. And I remember when I was writing the book, I posted a question on my Instagram and asked ” Who’s ever been called a fasted-tailed girl?” And there were so many people who weren’t in our culture who responded, “What does that mean?” And when I broke it down, I explained that you can get called fast for wearing too much lip gloss. And their reactions were like, “That makes no sense!”

And it makes no sense to anyone else, but us. My guess is that maybe it comes from a place of protection. Maybe they wanna protect us by making those comments, but it doesn’t protect us at all.

Courtesy, Tania Russell

(Courtesy, Tania Russell)

In the poem “Love’s Discernment” you end with the line “Love belongs to Black girls like me.” On that note, talk about Black girls deserving love, joy, and deserving protection.

T.R: I feel like it starts with self-esteem and how we see ourselves. I think we need to know that our unambiguous Blackness is phenomenal. I feel like we need to understand that our Black girl noses, our brown skin, our body types from the straights to the curvy, we need to know that all of that is perfectly fine. I think it starts there. I think the protection starts in facilitating space for us to explore. Don’t have your kids always stuck in the house, doing chores, doing homework. Let them go out and experience art. Let them go skate, let them go horseback riding, take them to do stuff maybe that you didn’t have the chance to do. And if you see a natural ability in your child, really pour into that wherever you can. So I think, for me, giving Black girls choices is giving them joy. Choices in how they style their hair. Choices in how they clothe themselves. Choices in their extracurricular activities. There are always going to be new obstacles, but if you give your child a sense of self and stability, they will have so much resiliency within this world. And then they’ll have a different type of confidence that no one can shake, instead of telling them how they should look and how they should act. That’s not going to serve them.

Tania Russell as a child

Tania Russell as a child (Courtesy, Tania Russell)

You have a poem called “how to heal a black body.” What spoke to me is the line about how to use a mirror constructively. Talk about that.

T.R: I think one of the first ways to destroy someone is to go for their mindset and destroy how someone sees themselves. So, to use a mirror constructively, one, you can’t have a distorted image of yourself. You have to know that all of your Africanness is beautiful. And two, you shouldn’t just look in the mirror to see how you look. You should be speaking over yourself in the mirror.

I love to do affirmations. One of my favorite affirmations is, “I’m committed to seeing what happens when I don’t give up. I love when good things are happening to me, and I’m capable of handling all the storms that I will walk through.”

I love to look in the mirror and say affirmations and that’s a different way to use a mirror. I wrote “how to heal a black body” because one of my great grandfathers was an herbalist. Those traditions didn’t really get passed down. But in my fantasy world, I wonder what would happen if I were a healer. What would I have to offer? So, in the poem, I go through all of our different ways of medicating that I know of. Like, ginger ale. And how my grandfather used to boil orange peel and cloves on the stove. And you could put your head over the pot to clear the mucus in your nose. So, I thought, what would a remedy look like for our soul? What would it look like if we went to the wilderness to find something or we went to the cabinet to find something to heal some of the hurt?

In the poem “adorn,” we read about Deja styling herself. You write about the richness and joy in rituals of femininity, such as putting on perfume. And you lace that with nuances of Black culture, such as bamboo earrings from the beauty supply store. We just spoke about handing Black girls back their joy and giving them options. So let’s end on that note. Talk about “adorn.”

T.R: That’s a good note! Because “adorn” really does capture that. You see all these different types of ways to be a woman through the people in your community. Deja is putting on these earrings, but it’s really her trying on these different types of like how to be a woman. And then she realizes that the thing that she’s gravitating towards the most is not from her great-grandmother or grandmother. It’s not her mom or best friend. It’s her and whatever her choice is.

So, “adorn” really captures that. It facilitates a space for you to try on those things. Because no one is going to get it right. Our goal shouldn’t be perfection. We should encourage Black girls to explore different sides of themselves.

Watch the stream of “be gentle with Black girls” Addressing Adultification Bias and Protecting Black Childhood below.

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