Thick: And Other Essays

In “In the Name of Beauty,” McMillan Cottom explores how perceptions of beauty have shaped her life. She also identifies the limits of her own experience, writing, “there is not just one Black woman experience, no matter how thick one Black woman may be” (12). Her opinions on beauty are controversial, especially to Black women. Why is this? How does McMillan Cottom navigate the tensions raised by her perspective?

Diversity is raised throughout the book. Compare two contexts where diversity is analyzed by McMillan Cottom and explain how it relates to her larger argument.

Blackness and Whiteness are core themes in Thick. How does President Obama’s biracial identity illuminate how both Whiteness and Blackness are constituted and maintained?

Choose either race, gender, or class and identify three distinct moments in the text where McMillan Cottom uses it as an analytic.

How does McMillan Cottom link the personal to the political? Is it an effective strategy?

Black girls and women are centered in Thick. Analyze how McMillan Cottom contests the erasure of Black female expertise and the invisibility of Black women in the public sphere.

How does McMillan Cottom demonstrate the power of storytelling?

Identify three moments where McMillan Cottom’s expertise as a Black woman was undermined and how she links her own experience to the larger devaluing of Black women’s expertise.