By Andréa Butler

In an Instagram post shared on March 16, 2021 — two days after the Grammy Awards — 16-year-old Marley Dias made it 100% clear: She is not here for anybody’s respectability politics, so don’t @ her with that mess.

Apparently, after Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B’s performance at the Grammys, people slid up in Marley’s mentions praising her for being a good influence and repping Black girls with dignity while simultaneously dragging Meg and Cardi as “back alley trash” and “disgraces to society.”

But Marley, who first came on the scene back in 2015 with her campaign to collect and donate children’s books featuring Black girls as main characters, had to let ’em know she is not the one. Not the one to keep silent. Not the one to enable hateful attacks. Not the one to skip out on uplifting and supporting Black girls and women, regardless of how they choose to express themselves.

“NEVER will I tolerate this misogynoir, and any celebrations of my success should not be at the expense of other successful women,” Marley says in one part of her post. “One of my goals of #1000BlackGirlBooks is for the HUMANITY of all Black girls and women to be respected … Respectability politics are anti-Black, and we can no longer be okay with the policing of Black women and girls’ voices and art.”

Main Photo: Courtesy of Marley Dias