Ep219 - Baratunde Thurston | How To Be Black

Baratunde Thurston visits Google to discuss his book, How To Be Black. Drawing from his 30-plus years of personal expertise in being black, this satirical guide to racial issues includes helpful essays like "How to Be the Black Friend," "How to Speak for All Black People," and "How To Celebrate Black History Month." Audacious, cunning, and razor-sharp, How to Be Black exposes the mass-media's insidiously racist, monochromatic portrayal of black culture's richness and variety. Fans of "Stuff White People Like," "This Week in Blackness," and "Ending Racism in About an Hour" will be captivated, uplifted, incensed, and inspired by this hilarious and powerful attack on America's blacklisting of black culture. But the book isn't just filled with biting satire - it's a comedic memoir, chronicling Baratunde's coming-of-blackness from being raised by an Afrocentric single mother in one of Washington D.C.'s worst neighborhoods, through his education at The Sidwell Friends School & Harvard, and eventually into becoming a producer for The Daily Show and digital director of The Onion. How To Be Black is written for anyone who can read, loves to laugh, and has ever felt a distance between who they know themselves to be and what the world expects.

Originally published in March of 2012.

Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.