First published 2024
Jerald Walker takes readers through the complexities of Black American experience in this collection of personal essays. He writes as husband, father, teacher, and writer, tackling subjects from incarceration to home renovations, from gentrification to the crip walk, from pimping to the MAGA movement. Walker combines personal stories with cultural analysis, finding humor alongside serious examination. The title essay explores how African Americans developed a culture of heroic action in response to enslavement and oppression. Walker draws on Albert Murray's insight that violence in the forging process does not destroy the metal that becomes the sword. The collection offers readers both intimate revelation and broader cultural understanding through one man's varied perspectives on contemporary Black life.
Genres: essays, african-american, non-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, serious-examination, thought-provoking
Tropes: cultural-commentary, personal-narrative
176 pages · Hardcover · Amistad