To be quite unapologetic about yourself and not try to make the white people like you, you’re already going to push past the limit. And then, some people are like, ‘She’s the worst human being, ever!’ But I think people are going to already be critical of Black girls by nature, because we're not seen as palatable enough for them anyway.
Faridah has thoughts on this too: “Sometimes I get reviews and some people really love her. What I notice immediately about Chiamaka’s character, though, is that she’s, well, a mean girl, a role that has been done to death by famous white women throughout history but almost never crosses the invisible racial barrier.
“Black girlhood is so relatable for me,” Faridah says on writing Chiamaka, “because there's so much, I guess, self-hatred that can happen because of the way the world keeps on telling you you're not good enough.” This kind of othering breeds an opinion of self that makes buzzy self-love concepts like body positivity or affirmations a challenge in adulthood. “I feel so sad for people that have to have their coming of age in that type of environment.” People like her characters, Chiamaka and Devon, the two narrators in Ace of Spades that represent the entirety of the Black population at Niveus-a fictional academy that is both nowhere and everywhere. I have not experienced that in my life because of the area I'm from in London, everyone looks like me,” she recalls. "One guy actually pressed himself against me in a bookshop. “It was a huge culture shock that I was experiencing," she says. Still reeling from the drastic move from London to Scotland, Faridah began to observe microaggressions and outright aggressions for the first time in her life. A lot of them have gotten their wealth and prestige from what they did in the past.”Ī post shared by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé (opens in new tab) "It's kind of interesting how they're all hiding basically what you've been doing. “I think a lot of these institutions, whether it's university or a high school, they often are prestige because they have a history that is rooted in a kind of subjugation of Black people," she says. I ask her almost immediately what she thought the relationship was between anti-Blackness and so-called prestigious institutions.
It is not simply a cautionary tale of institutionalized racism but actually, a visceral depiction of the acute danger that people of color in white spaces find to be the norm. Her book, like many others that have been published in the last few years, places the subject of racial relations in the horror genre. She’s living back home in London, doing virtual learning for her final year at university-the place that ended up being an unexpected catalyst for her creativity in writing Ace of Spades. Faridah and I connect-like so many people do now-over Zoom (complete with technical difficulties) at night her time because she’s a night owl.
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