Research Catalog

What doesn't kill you makes you blacker : a memoir in essays

Title
What doesn't kill you makes you blacker : a memoir in essays / Damon Young.
Author
Young, Damon, 1978-
Publication
  • New York, NY : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2019]
  • ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Filter by

2 Items

StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextUse in library JFE 19-9017Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315
TextUse in library Sc E 19-1242Schomburg Center - Research & Reference

Details

Additional Authors
Young, Damon, 1978-
Description
307 pages; 24 cm
Summary
For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as "How should I react here, as a professional black person?" and "Will this white person's potato salad kill me?" are forever relevant. What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young's efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him. It's a condition that's sometimes stretched to absurd limits, provoking the angst that made him question if he was any good at the "being straight" thing, as if his sexual orientation was something he could practice and get better at, like a crossover dribble move or knitting; creating the farce where, as a teen, he wished for a white person to call him a racial slur just so he could fight him and have a great story about it; and generating the surreality of watching gentrification transform his Pittsburgh neighborhood from predominantly Black to "Portlandia . . . but with Pierogies." And, at its most devastating, it provides him reason to believe that his mother would be alive today if she were white. From one of our most respected cultural observers, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker is a hilarious and honest debut that is both a celebration of the idiosyncrasies and distinctions of Blackness and a critique of white supremacy and how we define masculinity.
Uniform Title
Essays. Selections
Alternative Title
  • Essays.
  • What does not kill you makes you blacker
Subjects
Genre/Form
  • Essays.
  • Autobiographies.
  • Biography.
Contents
Introduction: Living while black is an extreme sport -- Nigger fight story -- Street cred -- Bomb-ass poetry -- Your turn -- No homo -- Driver's ed -- Three niggas -- Obama bomaye -- Broke -- How to make the internet hate you in 15 simple steps -- Banging over bacon -- Yolo -- Living while black killed my mom -- East liberty kutz -- Thursday-night hoops -- Zoe.
Call Number
Sc E 19-1242
ISBN
  • 9780062684301
  • 0062684302
OCLC
1090242570
Author
Young, Damon, 1978- author.
Title
What doesn't kill you makes you blacker : a memoir in essays / Damon Young.
Publisher
New York, NY : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2019]
Copyright Date
©2019
Edition
First edition.
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Local Note
Schomburg copy with dust jacket.
Local Subject
Black author.
Added Author
Young, Damon, 1978- Nigger fight story.
Young, Damon, 1978- Street cred.
Young, Damon, 1978- Bomb-ass poetry.
Young, Damon, 1978- Your turn.
Young, Damon, 1978- No homo.
Young, Damon, 1978- Driver's ed.
Young, Damon, 1978- Three niggas.
Young, Damon, 1978- Obama Bomaye.
Young, Damon, 1978- Broke.
Young, Damon, 1978- How to make the internet hate you in 15 simple steps.
Research Call Number
Sc E 19-1242
JFE 19-9017
View in Legacy Catalog