Summary

Mahogany L. Browne’s “Complex Citizen” is the seventeenth essay. She explains that her love for reading has followed her since childhood, giving her time to be alone and learn about what is desirable in the world. Her conclusion that to be white is seen as more desirable demonstrates the way in which young black girls are made to feel “invisible” (158). Browne was struck by Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” upon reading it for the first time. There, she saw stories of sexual and other, subtler, forms of abuse which follow black women in particular. The fictional character Frieda exemplifies a brave, black girl like Browne’s cousin Tiffany, who stood up for Browne when a white friend of theirs bullied her, reminding Browne that no one and nothing should “darken [her] own ideas of...