Token Black Girl: A Memoir

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Racial identity, pop culture, and delusions of perfection collide in an eye-opening and refreshingly frank memoir by fashion and beauty insider Danielle Prescod.

Danielle Prescod grew up Black in an elite and overwhelmingly white community, her identity made more invisible by the whitewashed movies, television, magazines, and books she and her classmates voraciously consumed. Danielle took her cue from the world around her and aspired to shrink her identity into that box, setting increasingly poisonous goals. She started painful and damaging chemical hair treatments in elementary school, began depriving herself of food when puberty hit, and tried to control her image through the most unimpeachable, impeccable fashion choices.

Those obsessions led her to relentlessly pursue a career in beauty and fashionthe eye of the racist and sexist beauty standard storm. Assimilating was hard, but she was practiced. And she was an asset. Their Token Black Girl. Toxic, sure. But Danielle was striving to achieve social cache and working her way up the ladder of coveted media jobs, and she looked great, right So what if she had to endure executives questions like What was it like to drive to school from the ghetto Or coworkers eager curiosity to know if her parents were on welfare. But after decades of burying her emotions, resentment, and true self, Danielle turned a critical eye inward and confronted the factors that motivated her self-destructive behaviors.

Sharp witted and bracingly candid, Token Black Girl unpacks the adverse effects of insidious white supremacy in the mediaboth unconscious and strategicto tell a personal story about recovery from damaging concepts of perfection, celebrating identity, and demolishing social conditioning.

Reviews

"A trenchant, honest, and unique memoir about body image, fashion, and Blackness." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Former BET style director Prescod lays bare the toxic scaffolding of the fashion and beauty industries in her piercing debut...As she reckons with [these] small- and large-scale oppressions, Prescod maintains a striking self-awareness and even hope that these problems have solutions. The result is sure to galvanize those who are looking to make change from within fraught spaces." --Publishers Weekly

"An eye-opening account of growing up in an elite white community and her career in fashion, where racist beauty standards are the norm." --USA Today

"A former BET style director reflects on the racism she internalized growing up in a mostly white environment, the toxicity of society's beauty standard and how she freed herself." --People Magazine

"Fashion industry and beauty expert, Danielle Prescod, dives into the reality of being a Black woman in the industry in a refreshing and brutally honest memoir." --Glamour

"[Prescod] didn't know she'd one day become a fashion media icon. Or that she'd have to face white supremacy and coworkers asking racist questions on a daily basis. This is her story of recovery--from perfection and from white supremacy." --Buzzfeed

"Prescod has come through the other side with wisdom to share about how to come into your true gorgeous self." --Los Angeles Times

"Through powerful anecdotes, Prescod details how being whittled down to just her race led her down dangerous paths of an eating disorder and internalized misogyny she regrets putting other women through...Token Black Girl faces the harsh realities of the media scene and empowers young women to fight to see change." --POPSUGAR

"Token Black Girl isn't just a fashion memoir or a manifesto about racism--it's also a specific look at the kind of society that Black girls live in. The book also offers a portrait of a woman grappling with the physical and emotional consequences of being raised in a world where whiteness was seen as more desirable, more acceptable. Prescod takes an unflinching look at how the fashion industry has upheld and continues to uphold whiteness, but also offers a guide to how things can improve." --Coveteur

"More than just another media memoir, Token Black Girl also explores how Prescod broke her own destructive cycles and found ways to heal from not just toxic work experiences but a toxic culture at large." --Town & Country

"In the refreshingly frank memoir, Prescod examines her life as a Black woman forced to confront the influence of media and its effect on her mental health and body image. Using anecdotes from her own life, Prescod's memoir emphasizes the prevalence of white supremacy in our daily lives and especially in the fashion and beauty industries." --Marie Claire

"Prescod candidly chronicles her life growing up as the "token Black girl" in a largely white, upper-class area in Connecticut to making it as a magazine editor in her adult life. She provides a razor-sharp look at the racist, toxic systems within the fashion and publishing industries. And lays bare the devastating effects it had on her mental and physical health" --The Skimm

"Human beings contain multitudes, and there are innumerable ways to show up as a Black woman in the world...I praise Prescod, who came up in a racially oppressive environment, for breaking free and finding her own definition." --Nneka McGuire, Washington Post

"With wit and the sharp eye of a woman who has lived through it, Prescod's memoir takes the reader into the places and institutions of privilege where the idea of the Token Black Girl thrives. Literally shrinking herself to conform to the expectations of those around her, Prescod's experience feels both unsettlingly familiar and incendiary. This is an essential read to understand how beauty standards and media industry affect Black women in America." --Gabrielle Union, author of You Got Anything Stronger

"Sometimes it feels like we are just beginning to discuss the full extent of the Black experience in America, and with a frankness and a brave ability to stare down her own truth, Danielle Prescod has vividly detailed a portrait of Black womanhood that feels so familiar and yet so rarely discussed. It's time! In her firsthand account of what it's like to live as a Black person in the middle of whiteness, Danielle suffers no fools and holds back no punches as she explores the humor, WTFs, and emotional repercussions of coming of age as she did. As a memoirist and cultural critic, she deftly keeps things from feeling like a collection of the aha-ha moments you have in therapy, and instead, through her experience, offers people a way out of their token Black friend role (self-inflicted, structural, or otherwise.)" --Allison P. Davis, senior writer for the Cut

"In an honest, relatable, and enlightening fashion, Danielle eloquently speaks about an experience many of us know too well. This pointed memoir reveals the struggle of being a Black woman in a world that tends to praise everything opposite of what you are. This is necessary reading for all women navigating social constructs while simultaneously learning to love themselves out loud." --Taylor Rooks, Emmy Award-nominated sports journalist and host of the Bleacher Report

"Danielle Prescod candidly shares her experience from growing up in a predominately white environment to then working in a white-dominant industry and how those experiences impacted her identity formation throughout the years. Her story made me feel seen as it is honest and relatable and will leave you mulling over your own experience with self-discovery in a world where we all strive for perfection and to 'fit in.' Token Black Girl is a must-read for anyone who has felt like a 'token' in society." --Hannah Bronfman, entrepreneur, author, and founder of HBFIT

"With her richly introspective debut, Token Black Girl, Danielle Prescod reveals devastating and lingering childhood traumas in evidentiating the racist structures central to the psychological gymnastics that the Black community must navigate in order to exist and thrive in the United States." --Tamu McPherson, fashion consultant and All The Pretty Birds founder

"First, this book should and will be taught in schools and universities. The way Danielle deftly discusses internal and external racism is masterful. She's like a hip university professor who, instead of barraging you with sleep-inducing soliloquies, talks to you as both a human and friend...And lastly, and what speaks to me most loudly, is that Danielle doesn't shy away from her own flaws and misgivings. In fact, she shines a bright light on them, which takes a particular type of courage that you can't help but admire. This is a book that doesn't only reflect our past but also our present, while giving us the tools to build a better future." --Mateo Askaripour

Author Bio

Danielle Prescod is a fifteen-year veteran of the beauty and fashion industry and graduate of NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. A lifelong fashion obsessive, she was most recently the style director of BET.com. With Chrissy Rutherford, Danielle cofounded 2BG Consulting, which aids fashion and beauty brands and influencers on their anti-racism journeys. She dedicates her time to researching how feminism and social justice intersect with pop culture. An avid reader and writer, Danielle also loves TikTok, the arts, staying active, horseback riding, and exercising at any hour of the day.