What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays

This is a powerful entry in the Black Lives Matter truth and reconciliation literary canon - plus it's UPROARIOUS! Meaning that the author, of the VSB (Very Smart Brothas) blog, is a humorist, a realist, and a powerfully vulnerable Black man. It's not written for white people or even for white allies specifically, which is a welcome relief, because the reader is being informed here but not schooled; not taught how to be anti-racist, but just taught about what it means to be a Black man. The chapter on Young's Pittsburgh childhood and about what he feels are the inevitable setbacks that can be expected in any Black family are the most wrenching, and reveals truths hidden from white Americans. His discourse on the two variations of the show more 'n-word' are eye-opening and provide a wealth of responses to share with those racists who don't understand why they can't say either. One of the most appealing chapters is a recounting of his two decades of weekly basketball games where his is the only Black man, and why none of these teammates, whose court skills he admires, have ever been to Damon’s home. His overwhelmingly persuasive denunciation of the repressive masculine standards that define American Black men is unforgettable. A must-read.

Quotes: "It was more the type of gratitude that occurs when a seven-year-old nephew draws you a really sweet picture of Rosa Parks slam dunking a football."

"Dad said, "Don't break yourself trying to appease white people. Martin Luther King was killed in a suit"

"If you're poor and Black, America acts like you emerged from the room twenty-seven years old, with four kids, five predicate felonies, and a lit Newport already between your lips. White babies get to be babies. Poor Black people are born Avon Barksdale."

"There is the privilege of mistakes."

"For the first two hours following the election of Barack Obama, I knew how it felt to be a white American. But all the whiteness I'd felt moments earlier and all the pride I felt moments earlier were neutralized by worry, tension, and dread. All I could think of were the wails I'd hear from the street when our Black-ass president-elect was assassinated. My president was Black. But for my sanity's sake, I wanted him to be invisible."

"The world's rapiest vat of Cheez Whiz had somehow managed to become the next president."

"It's just too fucking much to always have to be angry and alert. To always have to be ready and willing to challenge whiteness." show less

A wonderfully complex and cathartic book about being a black man in our current American landscape. I think I was more impressed with how verbose and hilarious each essay was. This collection was like therapy in a book for the confused and traumatized black man. I appreciated Young's ability to inject criticism, satire, irony, and experience in each story he told. I don't have a particular favorite essay because I believe readers should evaluate the collection as a whole. I can only say that his voice is needed in a world where blackness is often reduced to some kind of ENVOGUE, FASHIONABLE experience. Young accomplishes the goal of great writing: self-evaluation, evocative thought, critical commentary, and universal points of connection.

Damon Young nails white folks in his opening, which is the funniest part of the book.

Dropout, lies, confusion, then descent into sex obsessions follow, redeemed by Family.
Then backward into expensive designer clothes and living
(why not help parents to prevent house closing?
and why not help poor Black students instead of financing expensive rings and wedding? Huh.).

Maybe his friend Nick would have suggested using Dude instead of every other n-word variation.

He rescues the plot with Obamaland.

Then, the bomb -I bought this book without knowing that he wrote the Ebony Rape Shi-hole article, an insult to women of every color
and men of any decency.

""...white people...are not as susceptible...to addiction. Their world isn't as stress show more inducing."

Hello. Does. He. Actually. KNOW. Any. White? - or - substitute = Hispanic? or Asian? or Native People?
enough to try out that silly generalization, notably on all the poor and sick people of any of these races...?

Black men's "ho-ho-ho" dissing of Black women vs. Whiteys? Hispanics? Asians? Natives?

Happily ends up with a wife who does cruel monkey experiments.

And what if their child asks her father if he knows any man of any color stupid enough to write that rape article...?
Or brings to their all Black home a White boyfriend...? show less