Description
A provocative and humorous memoir-in-essays that explores the ever-shifting definitions of what it means to be Black (and male) in America for Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as "How should I react here, as a professional black person?" and "Will this white person's potato salad kill me?" are forever relevant.
What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: An Memoir in Essays chronicles Young's efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him. It's a condition that's sometimes stretched to absurd limits, provoking the angst that made him question if he was any good at the "being straight" thing, as if his sexual orientation was something he could practice and get better at, like a crossover dribble move or knitting; creating the farce where, as a teen, he wished for a white person to call him a racial slur just so he could fight him and have a great story about it; and generating the surreality of watching gentrification transform.
Museum Story
The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) is the only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, art, history, and culture. There are nearly 37,000 objects in the museum's collections.
Details
Paperback. 320 pages. 8" x 5.3".
