“Black girls and black women are problems. That is not the same as causing problems,” Tressie McMillan Cottom writes in her trenchant new collection of essays, Thick. “We are social issues to be solved, economic problems to be balanced, and emotional baggage to overcome.” Mulling over a wide variety of subjects, Cottom looks back on her personal experiences to deconstruct bigger social issues and imbalances in society. She's joined by Haitian-American writer-professor Roxane Gay, whose 2014 book, Bad Feminist, examines gender through the prism of race, sexuality, body image and modern culture. “Feminism is flawed, but it offers, at its best, a way to navigate this shifting cultural climate,” Gay writes.

Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood; Wed., Feb. 27, 8 p.m.; free. (310) 443-7000, https://hammer.ucla.edu.

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