A wider worldview: Diverse Perspectives (Nonfiction November 2025)

The leaves have fallen, and where I live, we’ve seen our first dusting of snow. For me, that means it’s time for me to usher in the beginning of the end of Nonfiction November and kick off week 4!

Here’s your prompt:

Nonfiction books are one of the best tools for seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. They allow us to get an idea of the experiences of people of all different ages, races, genders, abilities, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, or even just different opinions than ours. Is there a book you read this year from a diverse author, or a book that opened your eyes to a perspective that you hadn’t considered? How did it challenge you to think differently?

Bad Fat Black Girl

For this prompt, I read Bad Fat Black Girl: Notes from a Trap Feminist by Sesali Bowen — or rather, I listened to it. As soon as I started reading it, I realized that Bowen’s tone was something that the white voice in my head was incapable of reading the way it was meant to be heard. Fortunately, I was able to get a copy of the audiobook — which was read by the author! — and I could not, proverbially, put it down.

Bad Fat Black Girl is Bowen’s memoir where she takes us through her young adult years as a (you guessed it!) fat Black girl and uses her experiences to explain how she came to define her worldview of trap feminism.

Bowen doesn’t have one neat definition for trap feminism — or at least not one I can repeat here while doing it justice. In self-described “academic jargon,” though, she writes that “Trap feminism acknowledges the ways in which Black girls might benefit from and enjoy performing racialized gender in ways that have been deemed inappropriate, reductive, and unproductive.”

I thought this was a perfect read for a diverse perspectives prompt, because Bowen and I are opposites in many ways but alike in just as many. She’s had experiences that as a shy white woman I could never dream of having. We have different skin colors, body types, socioeconomic backgrounds, relationship preferences, and entirely different personalities. But we share the same feminist values, even if only one of us listens to trap music.

One thing that Bowen repeatedly emphasizes in the book to the point that it takes center stage on the cover is the idea of “getting that coin,” a central theme of trap music. She writes,

When people ask me what I was taught about money growing up, it’s that 1) you need it; and 2) it’s the key to autonomy, agency, and freedom. In other words, you can’t call any of your own shots, dictate your own schedule, or truly make your own decisions without the input of other people unless you can afford to do so.

I can imagine that the radical anticapitalists reading this are shook right now. They probably think I’m reinforcing materialism and unethical spending. And I know a lot of people are going to question the capitalist and consumerist themes that come up in this book as they relate to trap feminism. Let me tell you up front: I don’t have any groundbreaking theories or solutions to global capitalism, the poverty that it has created for so many people around the world, or the inherent racism embedded within it. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not an economist, and solving those kinds of problems are way above my pay grade. […]

When people say shit like “mOnEy DoEsN’t BuY hApPiNeSs” or that being rich hasn’t solved their problems or that finding ways to make money shouldn’t be the most important thing in our personal lives or collective organizing efforts, they’re speaking from a position of privilege that allows them to assume that being broke isn’t absolutely terrible to the point of being inhumane.

Sesali Bowen, Bad Fat Black Girl, pp. 112-114

As one of the radical anticapitalists to listen to Bowen’s words, I actually think she underestimates herself here. She seems to understand the harms of capitalism on her community perfectly well. After all, she’s lived it, which is something I’m sure they don’t teach in economics classes. Her focus on getting money due to her anxiety about being broke is a way she is acknowledging how capitalism has hurt her, not a way of giving in to the capitalist mindset. It’s common for capitalists to accuse socialists of being inauthentic if we try to sell art or work for corporations or interact with the capitalist system at all. If it was a choice, we wouldn’t. But it’s not. Bowen may not have all the answers, but no one does. Our views on capitalism don’t seem to be as different as she may think they are.

It was fascinating to see the world through Bowen’s eyes. I don’t want to spoil it, because I hope you’ll give it a try. (And maybe we will see it on your new to my TBR list for week 5!) I can’t wait to see what different perspectives you chose to read for this prompt. If you participated, please link up your blog post below!

You can also view the link party here.