What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker

 

Shirley J.              Adult Non-Fiction                            The Memoir of Damon Young 

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

Damon Young tells the story of his life, from his life with his parents, and later his adult life with his wife and child.    Growing up as a black male has been an "extreme sport" in his words.   Contending with white people is frustrating, infuriating, and angst causing.  It has taught him survival methods from watching his neighborhood change from where he grew up to a gentrified group of Kens and Karens or as he terms them Beckys.   He strongly believes his mother who suffered with debilitating cancer did not receive the medical care she would have had she been white.   He explores how he has often been mistaken for being gay, how he plays hoops every Thursday with a bunch of older white republicans and while he hates the fact they are Trumpers it isn't like he ever invites them over to his house so he justifies his dislike of their whiteness with the fact that he enjoys playing hoops enough to endure.  Often funny, his take on life is well worth the read whether he is pondering "some more o' that white people sh*t" or describing a day in his life.    I recommend this one to adults.