{"product_id":"9780062684318","title":"What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker : A Memoir in Essays","description":"\u003cp\u003eA Finalist for the NAACP Image Award\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA Finalist for the Hurston\/Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA Finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLonglisted for the PEN\/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAn NPR Best Book of the Year\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA Washington Independent Review of Books Favorite of the Year\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the host of podcast \"Stuck with Damon Young,\" 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\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a condition that's sometimes stretched to absurd limits: 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; provoking the angst that made him question if \"being straight\" was something he could practice and get better at, like a crossover dribble; and generating the surreal experience of watching his Pittsburgh neighborhood getrify from predominantly Black to \"Portlandia . . . but with Pierogies.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnd, at its most devastating, it provides him reason to believe that his mother would be alive today if she were white.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ECCO Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49802579280120,"sku":"00000_00000_00000_00000","price":35.23,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/8208\/6904\/files\/9780062684318-1_b07247e9-1701-44a5-9c1c-5a8734693e2f.jpg?v=1791015202","url":"https:\/\/kinokuniya.com.au\/products\/9780062684318","provider":"Books Kinokuniya Australia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}