Unfiltered: This author uses humor, honesty to talk about race in the US
Cultural critic Damon Young is known for using his platform to demonstrate and explain the intricacies of blackness. His blog, Very Smart Brothas,听was acquired by The Root (an听online magazine听centering on issues that affect the black community) in 2017 and is a brave exploration of how race, pop culture, and politics all intersect.听
Mr. Young is also a columnist at GQ.com, and his work has been featured in publications like Ebony, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. From the effects of white supremacy to the complexities of colorism, Mr. Young鈥檚 voice,听observers say,听is a critical one when it comes to amplifying the unique and difficult nature of the black male experience. Humor is often his vehicle of choice.听
鈥淸L]iving while black has provided me with enough thrills to make Wes Craven scream,鈥� he writes in the introduction to 鈥淲hat Doesn鈥檛 Kill You Makes You Blacker,鈥� his memoir in essays,听released听earlier听this spring. 鈥淲henever I am followed by a police officer while driving, for instance, the theme song from 鈥淢ission: Impossible鈥澨齪lays on a loop in my head, and the mental checklist I run through reminds me of [action hero] Ethan Hunt attempting to defuse a nuclear warhead.
Why We Wrote This
Straightforward discussions about race are not always comfortable for Americans. How might cultural critic Damon Young鈥檚 memoir, 鈥榃hat Doesn鈥檛 Kill You Makes You Blacker,鈥� change that? We sought him out to ask.
鈥極K, people. Relax. Stay calm, and do exactly what I tell you. Make a sharp right at this light to see if he鈥檚 following us or just happens to be behind us.鈥欌�澨�
鈥淲hat Doesn鈥檛 Kill You Makes You Blacker鈥澨齝hronicles not only Mr. Young鈥檚 life but how outside 鈥� and institutional 鈥� forces affect it.听With startling self-awareness,听he dives deep into the encounters, moments, and relationships that have shaped him.
鈥淓ach chapter in the book, even though it delves into very specific parts of my life, injects larger things into it. There are critiques of masculinity, critiques of patriarchy, critiques of race and racism, critiques of myself,鈥� Mr. Young explains in a phone interview.
The book examines the prevalence of听overlapping forms of discrimination, classism, and otherness in the era of Trump and the microaggressions that black people routinely deal with but which fail to make their way into larger conversations. Mr. Young says that the narrative surrounding black folk is听two-dimensional and typically oscillates between trauma and excellence. He is working to change that.
鈥淲hen America focuses on us, they tend to focus on the two extreme ends of the spectrum, but we have all of this abundance within us, all of this beauty. We talk about love; we talk about pain; we talk about chicken wings听and have arguments about which ones are better, flats or drums.鈥� Mr. Young coyly adds, 鈥淭he answer is flats, by the way. Ultimately, I wanted to create a thing that was authentic and was as true to my experience as it could possibly be. That鈥檚 what I hope I鈥檝e done.鈥�
From racist epithets being hurled at his family that resulted in a volatile confrontation when he was just 6 years old to disclosing his fears when it comes to raising his daughter, Mr. Young knows that it鈥檚 the broader themes that will captivate audiences.听
鈥淚鈥檓 not Michelle Obama. ... I鈥檓 not Black Panther. No one really cares that much about my biography or where I went to school or how I met my wife,鈥� he says with a slight chuckle. 鈥淲hat people care about are the connective things that we all share: the angst, the anxieties, the neuroses, the vulnerabilities.鈥�听
Mr. Young has been writing professionally for more than a decade, and identity has saturated a significant amount of his work. He says that it is integral in his memoir听and only strengthened its message. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 set out to write a black book. I set out to write a book about听me. But听blackness is a central part of me. Anything I do or create is black by virtue of me doing it.鈥澨�
He expounds on that in . 鈥淏lackness forces you to love harder,鈥� he writes. 鈥淚t forces you to entertain the concept of forgiveness and choose whether it鈥檚 a thing you鈥檙e interested in possessing. It forces your hugs and your kisses and your daps to be tighter and longer, like a book you read ever so slowly because you鈥檙e not quite ready for it to end. It forces improvisation to be an immutable function of life.鈥�
Elsewhere he takes on white privilege and how it is perpetuated by the feelings and opinions of white people counting more than the feelings and opinions of those who are not white. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not so much that blacks are thought to be subhuman, although that belief festers too. It鈥檚 that the humanity of whites is the only humanity that matters. Their humanity is the standard all other humanities are judged by.鈥�
National Book Award-winning author听Ibram Kendi, offering praise ahead of the memoir鈥檚 release, called it 鈥渦nobstructed and unsanitized鈥� and applauded Mr. Young for being brave enough to write it. Still, Mr. Young鈥檚 unfiltered, sometimes R-rated, approach is perhaps not for everyone, and even he is anxious and 鈥渢errified鈥� at times about the process and how people will react to his work.听
鈥淚 write a lot about anxiety and self-consciousness, but I鈥檓 a bit more confident than I give myself credit for. I put very personal things into these essays, and it鈥檚 been very cathartic and therapeutic.鈥� He adds, 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 think I had it in me to write something so vulnerable.鈥�
