Review by Kristina Johnson-Yates, Indiana University Indianapolis
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press, 2025
Length: 261 pages
Black Gurl Reliable: Pedagogies of Vulnerability + Transgression by Dominique C. Hill uses Black Girlhood studies as a framework to investigate “happenings at the nexus of Black girlhood, bodies, and justice while presenting and reflecting upon what reliability work might look like” (p. 3). Hill grounds this project with a set of guiding questions that consider how Black girls are “becoming amid modes of confinement,” what “sites and procedures incite “spirit murdering,” how race and gender structure these forms of foreclosure, and how embodiment and justice work operate as “interconnected terrain” (p. 11). She sets the stage for a text that is as intimate as it is critical by inviting readers to “get naked with her” and move through its pages with intention. The Black girl who is overpoliced and criminalized, hypersexualized, and held with little regard can take refuge in the pages of this book. Ever aware of the challenges Black girls and women face, reliability work, positioned as a way to work from “an ‘us’ position that acknowledges individual responsibility for one’s contribution to expanding Black aliveness through Black girlhood” (p. 4), takes center stage. Inspired by the wisdom and words of Ntozake Shange, June Jordan, Pat Parker, Toni Cade Bambara, and Audre Lorde, Hill articulates her analysis through autoethnography and poetry, blending literature with lived experience to create a narrative that is personal, artistic, and scholarly.
From the book’s title, Hill seeks to nuance and expand the definitions placed on Black girls writing, “while girl is a category and an individual, gurl is an aesthetic, a sensibility, a way of being in the world” (p. 7). The book is divided into six chapters, including the conclusion, each of which peels back the layers of how Hill navigates reliability work in various contexts. In Chapter One, “‘Singing a Black Girl’s Song’: A Code for Black Girlhood Studies,” Hill explores the worldmaking endeavors of Black girls and women, charted in what reads like a robust literature review. A strength of this work is Hill’s categorization of Black Girlhood Studies into three periods: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. ‘Yesterday’ addresses the historical narratives around Black girls and women, ‘today’ examines the present, and ‘tomorrow’ envisions the future. Hill’s future-focused vision moves Black Girlhood studies forward by nuancing the distinction between childhood and girlhood, redefining innocence, and affirming Black girlhood as inherently queer. She writes that “queer on these terms is a political commitment to capaciousness, complexity, even contradiction” (p. 70).
Methodologically, Hill makes good use of her own life experiences, work, and desires to see Black girls thrive, weaving together personal narrative with the theoretical and pedagogical insights garnered from Black Girlhood studies. In Chapter Two, “Reverse Osmosis to Awaken Flesh,” Hill explores the dynamics of her time in juvenile detention as an adolescent. It is impossibly vulnerable, a venture that Hill refers to as “undressing in public” (p. 75). As she invites readers into parts of her life once buried deep in her memory, she is actively practicing reliability. This is fueled by Dillard’s (2012) work in (re)memory, while problematizing the systems that cause harm to Black girls. The body is a cite of knowledge, as Hill writes that, “Each time I kept parts of me concealed, presuming it was safer to compartmentalize, I widened the welcome to being blotted out, unknown to myself – a body with no spirit, flesh asleep” (p. 77). To reclaim a story is to go back and (re)member the parts that trauma and disembodiment forced one to forget.
Chapter Four, “Willful Touch: An Experiment in Body-Activation” grapples with the notion of touch as Hill recalls a project she did with a small group of Black girls during a summer intensive amid her dissertation research. She writes, “When Black girls will to touch, we – individually and collectively – are beckoned to undress, forefront, sentience, and background that which tries to deny our complexity, knowing, and mattering” (p. 157). While Hill’s exploration of touch is compelling, the concept might benefit from further elaboration, as its current treatment could leave readers with varying interpretations of its intended nuance. The sociopolitical time in which we exist offers little forgiveness with interpretation. Hill is aware of this, connecting her conceptualization of touch with Lorde’s (1984) uses of the erotic, a stance at risk of being misunderstood. The chapter is marked by its desire to go deeper with Black girls, get at the core of who they know themselves to be, yet there remains room for clarity on the use of touch to accomplish this goal. Nevertheless, Hill’s courage to engage with such intimate and complex terrain reflects a deep commitment to honoring the interiority of Black girls
By placing this work in conversation with Black Girlhood studies, readers might notice Hill adding a contemporary voice to the canon, echoing works such as Brown’s Hear Our Truths: The Creative Potential of Black Girlhood (2013) and Halliday’s The Black Girlhood Studies Collection (2019). Hill is inviting the field to expand its borders, making room for more variations of Black girlhood and blurring the lines around who “deserves” to be celebrated (p. 187). Researchers, scholars, teachers, and community helpers, such as youth workers, may find the work especially valuable for the way it traces the development of Black Girlhood studies and connects Black girls’ experiences to both theory and practice. Hill concludes by following the path of reliability work, writing open letters to her students, her body, a youth from her past that continues to inspire her work, and future Black Girlhood scholars. Ultimately, Hill contributes to the growing body of scholarship about and with Black girls and affirms the importance of centering their narratives in academic contexts. As she blurs the lines, Black Gurl Reliable invites readers to reflect and act, ultimately standing as a testament to the power of storytelling.
Kristina Johnson-Yates is a social worker and doctoral candidate in Urban Education at Indiana University Indianapolis. Her research is grounded in queer Black feminisms, with a focus on the lived experiences and worldmaking practices of queer Black girls and women.