What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker A Memoir in Essays

Damon Young — 2019

From the cofounder of VerySmartBrothas.com, and one of the most read writers on race and culture at work today, a provocative and humorous memoir-in-essays that explores the ever-shifting definitions of what it means to be Black (and male) in America 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.

Reviews

Kim@skullfullofbooks

Nov 15, 2021

It feels weird to give this a rating and to do a review of a book that is essentially one person telling his life story in essays and just providing the world with his personal opinions and observations from his life. Like, what do you rate? Personal enjoyment, the writing, the opinions? It isn't like he's creating a life from scratch, though I guess he is picking his own highlights of that life. I didn't love reading the book. I had a hard time continuing to read his misogynistic rantings about women in his earlier years. It doesn't make the book itself bad per se, but it is hard for me to stomach. I also personally had a harder time caring about him or his life after that from my own biases from the fact that there was a lot of misogyny going on, especially when he talks about a woman he just dated to dispel rumors that he was gay. Like, is that really how you viewed it at the time, or is this just a narrative flair to look edgy or something? It just felt weird and seemed exaggerated and maybe that's a reality that I don't want to accept, but it's honestly the main thing I remember from this memoir. Other than that. I honestly don't know what to say. He gives his essays, usually based around one event or similar events strung together. Some of the essays want to make a point but seem to stop short. Some do make observations about the reality of being black in America and that was why I was reading it in the first place. The essay about his driver's license kind of confused me in the end (was his lack of ID an issue or not? because it seems like it wasn't?). I'd say it is worth a read if you are looking to learn about someone else's life and see the world through their lens, for good or bad. I honestly don't read many memoirs so it is a weird genre for me personally. If I wasn't reading this for a book club I would have stopped at the point where he details why he dated the hot woman and how he made sure people saw her to prove he wasn't gay, though. I was ready to quit but didn't want to tell the club I quit.