Jessica P. Pryde

“How do you sustain the love and confidence you’ve been given growing up when you’re awkward and clumsy and everything you love repeatedly reinforces a specific standard of beauty?”
― Jessica P. Pryde, Black Love Matters: Real Talk on Romance, Being Seen, and Happy Ever Afters

“Though the story sounds like a myth because it’s dressed in tales of heroic soldiers and kingdoms, Cole is really modeling how ideologies truly function in society. She has given the kingdom of Njaza a controlling image of women, an ideologically driven stereotype that provides justification for the existing social relations. Controlling images, according to sociologist and leading Black feminist Patricia Hill Collins, provide cover, making it seem that the way things are is how they should be.”
― Jessica P. Pryde, Black Love Matters: Real Talk on Romance, Being Seen, and Happy Ever Afters