This week I read "Long Way Down" by Jason Reynolds. This is not a book about racism or privilege, in the traditional sense that we see this day. It is fictional, poetic telling of a teen holding the cold handle of a gun as he contemplates "the rules" of retribution for his brother's murder. He is descending into darkness as he descends in an elevator.
This is a book by a Black author. I am trying to move past reading books by white men and white women about white stories. This is my journey as I unlearn and relearn things I don't know anything about. This is coming to terms with realities that exist beyond my scope of understanding.
Instead of including an excerpt from the book, I have included the author's acknowledgement. In reading the acknowledgment I was moved to see there is truth there. Reading it feels like reading a language that is not English, that I do not speak, a secret code in a culture removed.
The author does not have a sad past like you might assume: a Black author writing about hate and crime and tragedy because he has lived a life of hate and crime and tragedy (oh the pain of white privilege, that scalding spotlight on my skin); but he accesses the real emotion behind it all. He shines a light on something real that I can never really know but I need to.
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