The Other Black Girl

Hazel, the primary antagonist of the novel, is a “Lead Conditioner” working under Diana and Richard to convert Black women into OBGs. Hazel is a master code switcher who expertly navigates both Black and white spaces: She oozes Harlem cool but can also “die on a hill for John Mayer” (132).

Hazel was initially assigned to convert Shani at Cooper’s magazine in Boston; however, due to the “Terminator”-esque (284) formula of Smooth’d Out, Hazel (who then went by the alias “Eva”) circulated an article in which Shani was quoted critiquing her white colleagues. Hazel successfully hedged Shani out of the office and became “The Last Girl Standing” (284), but Shani fled to New York before she could be converted. Shortly after Nella begins organizing Diversity Town Halls at Wagner, Hazel is reassigned to convert Nella. This time, she succeeds: Nella consents to conversion and pursues Shani to Scope Magazine in Portland, leaving Hazel, once again, as the “Last Girl Standing.” In their final confrontation Hazel claims that she and Nella are very alike and reveals that she, too, was once an “Involuntary.” Hazel also insists that, after her conversion, she learned to embrace the relief that comes along with Smooth’d Out: a numbness to articles documenting white supremacist actions, “police footage” of violence against Black people, and “the heavy anvil of genetic trauma” that comes with being a Black American (343-44).

In the context of these final lines, Hazel emerges as both the villain and the victim of the novel. According to Harris in a May 2021 interview with Entertainment Weekly, “describing Hazel as a victim, especially as a victim of colonialism, feels too easy” (Harris, Zakiya Dalila. “Zakiya Dalila Harris on her blockbuster debut The Other Black Girl: ‘I want readers to hold many ideas of Blackness at the same time.’” Interview by Seija Rankin. Entertainment Weekly, 2021). Hazel is self-aware and conscious of the ways in which racist systems function; this consciousness is part of what makes her so adept at code switching. She’s able to identify and appeal to the expectations of white and Black audiences. She may be under the influence of Smooth’d Out, but Hazel is no mindless robot. Instead, she demonstrates a tremendous amount of agency and appears in many ways to be a true villain. However, Harris notes in the same interview that Hazel “is a victim of wanting to fit in and to be exactly what she thinks she needs to be in order to climb the corporate ladder.” As evidenced by the career blowback that Kendra Rae, Shani, and Nella experience when they point out workplace racism, Black women who speak out in the novel experience retaliation, while women like Diana and Hazel are rewarded. Using Smooth’d Out makes it easier for them to ignore the painful images Hazel describes above, which in turn makes it easier to conform and succeed in white workplaces.

Kendra Rae is best characterized by Shani in Part 3 as “Black. Unapologetic. Someone who [tells] it like it [is]. Someone who rejected what was expected of her as a Black woman in a predominantly white industry” (266). After rocketing to fame in October 1983 as editor of Diana Gordon’s bestseller Burning Heart, Kendra Rae is weary of conforming to the standards placed upon her by her white contemporaries. By November, Kendra Rae is venting her frustrations in an interview that is later published with the title, “Bestselling Burning Heart Editor: ‘If You White, You Ain’t Right With Me’” (163). In addition to being targeted by the media for her critique, Kendra Rae receives threats from white and Black readers alike: White readers resent Kendra Rae’s characterizations of the publishing industry as racist, and Black readers worry they will experience backlash from white people by association. This overwhelmingly bad press causes Richard and Diana to conspire to convert Kendra Rae as the first OBG. By chance, Kendra Rae overhears one of their conversations, guesses their plan, and escapes to upstate New York before she is converted.

Kendra Rae represents what happens to Black women in the novel who, unlike Hazel, actively choose not to fit in. Cut off and disenfranchised, Kendra Rae strives to maintain her anonymity to avoid retaliation from all sides. However, she rallies the energy and courage to fight back against the OBGs in 2018 after receiving a frantic voicemail from Nella, whose plight mirrors her own. Kendra Rae, like Nella, longs for Black female solidarity. She has been betrayed by Black women in the past and wants to ensure someone else’s life isn’t ruined the same way. Unfortunately, Kendra Rae is betrayed yet again at the end of the novel, this time by Nella, who has photo evidence that can “[free] Kendra Rae from hiding” but chooses not to send it (345). Kendra Rae is a “Strong Black Woman” whose efforts to tell the truth are continually rewarded with the kind of suffering that Diana and Hazel seek to escape.

Diana might be considered the original OBG. With her wigs and false solidarity, even Diana herself feels she has “given up.” Like Hazel, Diana is determined to do whatever it takes to climb the corporate ladder, even if it means repeatedly selling out her best friend. She initially rejects Richard’s suggestion that Kendra Rae edit Burning Heart and instead prefers to work with Richard, “who became a legend by thirty and [knows] all the bells and whistles of publishing” (279). Later, after Burning Heart becomes a massive success, it is Diana—not Richard—who suggests “conditioning” Kendra Rae with Smooth’d Out. Finally, when it comes time to put their plan into action, it is Diana who “reached a gloved hand into her hair, grabbed a piece by the root” (285), and dosed Kendra Rae for the first time.

Like Hazel, Diana might be seen as both a villain and a victim. On one hand, all of Diana’s efforts to control Kendra Rae serve her own interest: She can’t support Kendra Rae’s statements or white readers will refuse to buy her books, and she can’t denounce Kendra Rae or “Black people will see [her] as a traitor” (281). In other words, controlling Kendra Rae ensures Diana’s continued financial success. On the other hand, both Diana and Imani, her childhood friend, imagine Smooth’d Out as a “project that will make the lives of Black women all over the country just a little bit easier” (282). Their goal is to make Black women numb to the “waves of racism” they wade through every day (282). Although misguided, Diana and Imani’s efforts are intended to help Black women rather than harm them. Diana is a complex and not wholly unrelatable villain.

Although Harris only offers insight into Richard’s character through his passing conversations and phone calls with others, Richard emerges as one of the central actors within the plot. An embodiment of systemic racism, as a cisgender heterosexual white man and owner of a prestigious publishing house, Richard enjoys being at the top. He’s content with the status quo and eager to offer financial support when Diana provides a solution (or rather, a formula) for “difficult” Black people working at Wagner and at his colleagues’ companies. His motivations for funding Smooth’d Out are the opposite of Diana and Imani’s: Although misguided, they seek to make life easier for Black women, whereas Richard seeks to make life easier for himself.

In fact, all of Richard’s attempts at embracing “diversity”—publishing Burning Heart, installing diversity meetings, sponsoring the Young, Black ’n’ Lit event, vowing to change Wagner’s hiring practices—are done for the “optics,” which translate to his own commercial gain. Richard has no intention of ceding power to his Black colleagues or to his mistress, Diana. Richard’s affair with Diana and his push to take their relationship public continue to serve his own ego more than her needs. As evident in the way Richard’s gaze lingers on a poster of “a beautiful ebony woman” with “bone-straight, just-blow-dried hair” at Curl Central (221), Richard fetishizes a particular kind of Black woman as an object to be looked at, not as an equal and partner in business.