The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

Content Warning: This section contains mentions of suicide and also discusses body image, racism, ableism, and transphobia.

In the Foreword, author Ijeoma Oluo recounts her first memory of people expressing concern over her size. She recalls that at age 11, she overheard her mother and aunt fretting over a photo of her, commenting on her body and worrying that she was getting big. This experience deeply impacted Oluo. As she grew up, she went on to internalize the belief that, as a Black girl, she needed to shrink herself in every way.

Oluo says that in her thirties, she started to allow herself to take up more space. She started a successful career as a writer. While she came to value her brain and her talents, she still found it difficult to love her body. One day, she saw Sonya Renee Taylor speaking on stage and saw Taylor fully inhabiting her body as a confident and strong woman. Oluo bought Taylor’s book, which changed Oluo.

Oluo praises Taylor’s vision, which imagines a type of healing that goes beyond traditional self-help, a genre Oluo acknowledges can be steeped in capitalism, ableism, and white supremacy. Oluo declares Taylor’s work to be a classic and one that she hopes will enable readers to discover lives of self-love.