With all of the readings, I was really intrigued, and I really wanted to connect some of the content with the Black Woman’s experience in America. I often feel like Black women don’t even own their bodies. Our bodies are always for public debate, and when I say bodies, I don’t just mean like our physical self, I mean like everything we do, whether it be speaking, our general demeanor, etc. It always becomes a matter of public opinion. Citizen by Claudia Rankin talks about the public outrage that Serena Williams was behind, with the way that she expressed her discontent with the umpire of her match, and how she was messing up her calls. It just reminded me of the first reading we did in class, “Introduction: Not Just the Reflexive Reflex” by Kosut & Moore. There is this quote we went over in class. It was in reference to the body and how “it is our possession and our prison, while at the same time it is out of our control as it leaks, fails us, and gives us away” (2), and we discussed in class how this process of “leaking” is completely normal. I looked at it from the point of view that what Serena did was completely normal; her being upset was her body “leaking” in a way. Still, for some reason, it was a problem; it no longer became normal to be a professional athlete who spent their entire time training for matches like this, to be rightfully upset when the umpire made an error. I also found a connection between “Throwing Like a Girl” by Young and how women often have this battle of I can and I cannot, or maybe in this case, it is I should and I should not. While this was in reference to physical activities, I connected this with how we as Black women so often know that we should speak up when we are disrespected, but we hit ourselves with the I cannot. We don’t have the luxury of being able to voice our opinions without it ruining the public perception of Black women as a whole.