Kiese Laymon isn’t just telling the story of how his early life was filled with harrowing trial and tribulations, but the true nature of the black American experience. For many this is just a window into a world that they can’t even begin to understand. For me, however, it is something that hits home for me everyday of my life. Laymon details how being the country’s most hated demographic not only weighed heavily on his life, but took the lives of numerous young African Americans in his own state and country. The use of Laymon’s rigid and unpredictable words and transitions make the excerpt pile up to a harsh reality that kept my attention the whole way through.
These harsh realities are: institutional racism, police brutality, black-on-black crime, and mental illness. All of these played a part in the choices that Kiese Laymon made. Although individuals would say his personal choices led to harsh outcomes, we as an audience have to think about the part society and ourselves play in continuing inequality and instilling equality in our country. At times while I was reading I was confused as to why Laymon thought he was killing others in America. But I have also learned that if you’re not practicing anti racism, you’re only contributing to the problem. I can relate to Laymon’s feeling of identity loss through the contrived ideas of society and racism towards those who I share the same skin color as. It makes me wonder have I done enough to create progression in my community or am I only continuing to contribute to the loss of those who are just like me.
Your first paragraph hits that nail on the head. This type of perspective it never written about and in such crude straightforward manner. I found it very interesting to read it from this perspective and made the problems this demographic faces way more real and scary.
ReplyDeleteI like how you included the truth that if you're not practicing anti racism, you are contributing to the problem in America today. It's a harsh reality.
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