Damon Young, "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker"

Damon Young discusses his book, "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker", at Politics and Prose.

Co-founder and editor-in-chief of VerySmartBrothas, senior editor at The Root, columnist for GQ, and one of EBONY’s Power 100, Young is one of the most influential writers on race, class, and gender working today. His memoir is a scathing and painfully funny account of growing up Black in America. In a series of lively essays, Young enumerates the endless anxiety and second-guessing that come with the territory of a racist nation, showing how survival is a process of managing the various neuroses that make him question his competence in every situation. Employing his signature humor and insight, Young both celebrates an idiosyncratic Blackness and critiques white culture, all the while keeping his balance on the ever-shifting ground of what it means to be Black and male. Young is in in conversation with Panama Jackson, co-founder of VerySmartBrothas.com.

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Produced by Tom Warren