Audio Book Recommendation: How To Be Black

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Hello Bookworms,

Today's book is How To Be Black by Baratunde Thurston. This book is insightful and humorous and I absolutely love this book! This guide on how to be black, isn't what you think it might be. During his chapters, he gets opinions from other fellow black people -- plus one white person -- on their views on being black. He asks questions
on when did you realize you were black and did you ever not want to be black, so I decided to write my response right here in this post.

In my short lived life of twenty-one years, I've experienced racism. The first questions I would like to answer is:

When did you realize you were black?

I want to say about elementary school, I realized I was black. There was this girl, she had long pretty brown hair and it flowed in the wind. She was talking to her friends one day and was talking about her hair and proceeded to flip her hair as demonstration. She was friends with a black girl and she went up to her and flipped her hair up and the black girl's hair didn't respond the same way as the white girls hair did. Unfortunately, I was just a by standard and I didn't even know these girls, I didn't even know they went to my school until this day. I felt so bad for her, but that same day when I went home I did the same test to myself. That's when I realized I was different, that's when I realized, I was black.

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This book is very relatable for me, especially growing up in an all white school, until I reached high school. There were many situations where I felt uncomfortable being black, even when the school boys -- who were very fast at the time -- were flirting with my class mates and not me, I thought it was because I was black. It probably was because I wasn't down with being disrespected, other than that I never really felt no type of way being black. I did noticed in high school that I was more comfortable being black especially when I found people that were just like me and talked like me too. Although, I was singled out for talking properly and made fun of by other black people. They use to call me a teachers pet and use to joke around about how I was always on high honor roll, who knew it was a crime to get good grades.

 This book teaches people how the be the black coworker, be the black friend, and shows you how to take this role responsibly. My favorite part is when he starts to talk about hair; "whether it's natural or synthetic, do not make any comment about it, and don't ask to touch my hair". He describes that, he himself, use to rock the afro and people would often want to touch his hair wondering how it could do such a style. He explains to people that it's not polite to do such a thing, especially since a lot of people don't wash their hands after they use the bathroom.

I really enjoyed this book, I would definitely listen to it again. The next book is going to be, Self-Inflicted Wounds, by Aisha Tyler. Until next time ❤

With Love & Sweetness,