Damon Young: A Very Smart Brotha

in Trouble, streaming November seventeenth only on Hulu. Welcome to p M Mood then No Talking Points, No Bullshit podcast that takes you behind the curtain, off the red carpet, and to the front lines of progress with change makers and innovators that are doing the work to shift our culture and expand and our social impact. I am thrilled to welcome to p M Mood, the co founder of the Very Smart Brothers dot com and the author of What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker? Damon, Young Damon.

Thank you so much for joining me. Oh thanks thanks for having me. This is um This is a pleasure in a treat breaking up, breaking up the monotone same thing all day, every breaking up. Yeah, this is great. We're breaking up the groundhogs a day. Um. So you have a new book. Um, what doesn't kill you, kill you make you see you blacker? Which apparently I'm gonna need the T shirt, I'm gonna need the hat. I'm gonna need a jacket. Um, I'm gonna need a mask

now for them. That says it. Um, tell me about the title of this book and the theme behind it, because for me now reading it and and and seeing it, it has different feelings I'm sure from when you wrote it until now when it's coming out. So tell me about it. Um. So the book is about the an

anxiety and absurdity of existing more black in America. Um. And so it's um the title actually, so there's it's a funny story about the title because the original title when I sold a proposal, and you know, with written a proposal, told a proposal, and you did all of that and actually had worked on it for for for about a few months. M post proposal was Nigga the Roses. And I want to make sure I'm pronouncing that right because my accent maybe gets a little heavy sometimes and

I have a thick tongue. So people think I'm saying Nigga in the roses because I've actually been printed transcripts of interviews where people thought, that's it, Nigga in the roses, Like, no, that's like a two put pro that's not. But um so yeah, the original title was Nigga the roses, which is a term that encapsulates the state of being where you're professionally wondering how your race may have impacted your treatment.

So it could it could be something innoculous like you're at a restaurant and the server you order breakfast food and the server asks you if you want hot size with your food, and you're thinking, like, who puts off off some pancakes? Like she just this assumption And again that's not. That's not like a dangerous thing for that that is the thing. And then it could become dangerous when you know you following a police and you're wondering, okay, is this cop follow me in my car because I'm black?

And in the Bulk, I have a chapter about my mom where I, um, you know, I talk about her. He died it'll be seven years and in October, and how I questioned whether her treatment because she died of lung cancer. Would have been different if she were she was black. So so again Nigga ne roses. That was

the concept, that was the title. And then my editor at at Harpercollums talking to her people at Barnes Noble and her people at Amazon, who were like, you know, we love Damon, can't wait for his book, but I don't We could carry a book with that title, but I don't know if we get promoted the same way, like we can't have Nigga on like seventy two point on banner edge on the top of the page of the site. Um. And and so I heard that, and then you know, I had to think of a new title.

And I was actually on the plane the essencest in twenty eighteen, UM, working on some of the working on some of the dialog text and what doesn't kill You makes you black or dis academy and um in that term. Just if you're black in America right now, at this point, you should recognize, you should know by now that respectability is a fucking road right, and that there's no sort of like behavioral deodorant that you can wear that you can apply to get people to convince people of your

humanity or your citizenship, like anyone who needs us. So they're convincing, it's proof that they can't be convinced or why even try, And so what doesn't to make the blacker is basically an acknowledgement of that and also saying, you know what, if we want to survive, if we want to survive, if we want to exist here, we have to continue to embrace blackness instead of trying to simulate, trying to, I don't know, flatten ourselves out, you know,

the then embracing the saunching and blackness is the way to go. And that, let me ask you, because embracing blackness means so many different things to so many different

black people, right. You know, there are sites that celebrate there are all different kinds of sites melanin magic, black girl, magic, black boy joy, all of these different types of things that are set up to give us positive representation of what, you know, what is considered a revolutionary act, which is to be proud of being black, right instead of walking around with your head bowed and literally stepping off the sidewalk to make room figuratively and literally for other people.

So what does it mean for you when you say that to embrace your blackness. Well, you know, I forgot who it was with this quote. And I'm paraphrasing here, but if there are forty million black Americans, than there are forty million ways to be a black American? Right, um? And and and also too, I I I try to be very careful to to to articulate the idea that the reality that you know, so do you have this entire concept that that's pretty trendy now being unapologetically black?

You just you know, alluded to it. It's now your question where you know you got to be unapologetically? This is unapologetically that what does that look like? And I recognize that for someone like me, I have more freedom to say and do certain things than someone who maybe worked at the bank does or some other sort of corporate or more traditional you know, you know, job of environment. And so are they are they less unapologized if they can't go on Twitter and cust Donald Trump out like

I can, you know what I mean? And and and that's and that's just not that's it's not true. And I think that what I mean by that and what anyone you know who who has like any sort of understanding of history and just and just in the present also and just just what that means, what has meant to us. It just means not thinking of your blackness as like a detriment or a lack of bithology, and considering it to be this is, this is, this is

a positive, that this is a great thing. Now how that great same manifest depends on who you are, depends on your life. But you know, we we we're indoctrinated, you know, with all of this messaging about you know, black being bad, black being disease, black being wrong and be not unapologetic. M extracts that, you know, abstracts that anti blackness, and and once the astraction happened, then you're free to be whoever you want to be. You know,

that attraction, that extraction is. It's difficult because you know, even people, I mean, I still find myself maybe thinking or doing things that I think to myself, you know that there might have been some late in the air blackness and there M I get really, you know, still in this day age twenty twenty, even though it's a fuckery every year, Um, it drives me insane, like hurts my heart when I see headlines about young children still

being suspended for natural hair. The video that went viral in twenty nineteen of the young black wrest who was forced to cut off his locks so that he could play in the championship match. Um the prescriptions that uh A elementary school put out in a black neighborhood, policing how parents were dropping their kids off. No no do rags, no head scarves, no this that or the other thing.

And you know, friends that I've had that have attended HBCUs have talked about the respectabild that that's the birthplace in some in some aspects their words, not mine of respectability politics, and other folks saying, well, then you have to understand who created those HBCUs, right, Who who created those those spaces. And even though we say that if there are forty million black people, there are forty million ways to be black, there is this mainstream way of

being black or what is accepted as black. I can remember, you know, I grew up out East on Long Island in New York. And you know, as part of when I was growing up, very heavy grunge scene, punk scene, skateboarders, like that's what I That's what I grew up around in the suburbs. I remember going to college and being told because of the music that I liked that I wasn't black, right. I still get joked on in in many ways because Depeche Mode was the first concert I

ever went to. Um and you know, and so it it's like, is it worse that we sometimes within the community do it to ourselves, or is it worse that we are trying to move against the reflection that society has for us that white and eurocentric is the best. I mean, the thing about, you know, doing it to ourselves. None of us are men to to to the Leviathan of anti blackness, um. None of us are me in the bad you know, um and and and it sus

all aspects of like wherever the sunshine in America? Anti blackness of too, and and so it takes a lot. It takes It takes some effort, It takes some some reading, It takes some self examination. It takes them deconstructing to be able to locate it, you know, and extract it.

I mean, if we I hate to use the cancer analogy because you know, I don't want to be insensitive to people who have had cancer, but I think of it in a similar manner where it's a it's a tumor that will continue to grow and men test size, you know, unless you are able to do with singing it. So, you know, hearing stories about younger black people who might have been told they were weren't black enough for or

this or that. You know, I've heard that before. And I understand that too, because because again that that definitely definitely has happened, definitely does happen, but it's not I think the danger and and and I think the dangerous takeaway from that is to blame black people for that, um just because again, anti blackness is it's everywhere, and even some of the most you know, I don't know even in them, even if some of the most unambiguously

pro black people and I'm saying pro black in quotations have anti blackness kind of streams. And so the question, I think or or the problem isn't necessarily black people who you know, have these um have these like like binaries of blackness, these really limited um and calculations of

what it means to be black. But the problem is a greater you know, society, greater country um that has forced those definitions on us and has forced that rigidity, and it's also created an environment where we have to fear for our lives and so and in order to respond to that sort of danger, you do or say certain things that people believe will protect you, right, And so that's why you know, when you're talking about like the HBCUs and people you know maybe be intot a

certain way and where those lessons came from, you do, you know, have to understand or knowledge at least that many of those architects came of age at a time when it was legitimately life thread you just exist just a little black yeah, and you know, yeah, those same threats exist now, but it's it's it's just not the same.

This scale is not the same. And also there were you know, they were very radical people then people who would still be considered radical in twenty first into your context, but the definition of radical chefs, I think, so what might have been radical in nineteen twenty isn't going to be radical and desotment twenty But it doesn't mean that they aren't radical. You know, you're a father, and I mean your Facebook posts give me life because I think

they're just so freaking hilarious. Um, what does it mean for you, like when you were in the in the early early stages of fatherhood, when you knew that you were going to become a father, what are some of the things as a black man right in America creating this black family that came up for you that you wanted to make sure that either you were going to pivot away from or lean all the way into. Yeah,

it's um. So the last chapter mable Um is addressed to my daughter sum who it's four years old now, but when the book was published three yeah last year, so yes, he was three. I'm a band Americum. And the chapter is about just and I think you know most parents have this where you have a child and you wanted her out a way to give them all the best parts of you while also kind of kind

of filtering out the bad part. You know, you want her, you know, auto attributes that you believe to be the one that you want to brag about, the ones that you want to continue on. Those are the ones you want her to have. What your children have in the bad things, maybe the addictions or the anti blackness or whatever that you consider to be a negative part of you. You don't want your kids have that. But it's kind

of impossible to do that. You know your kids are going to witness you, they're going to observe you, they're going to um model themselves after you, and so you just have to do the best job because possible to do. They're rare in the right way, and teach her the right way. And when you have a black child in America, there's also the idea like, okay, so yeah, you know, you teach your children that they could be whoever in

whatever they want to be. But if you also teach your black child about America, about this four hundred of year old behem, if that is going to do everything you can for thank you for filling that. Those two lessons might seem to contradict, right, It's like, on one hand, oh yeah, Dad, You're you're saying I could do everything I want to I could be everything I want to be.

But you're also saying America is a motherfuck the monster, and it's it's gonna have its foot on my neck for basically my entire life once once I came out of toddlerhood, I'm gonna have its foot on my neck. And so how did those in a chapter? I ask myself it's like, how did those lessons for reconcile? And and and you know, as a parent, what you do is you just give your child as much information as possible and you tell them that, you know what, Yes,

America is the way America is. But it's not going to stop you. It's not going to prevent you from being what you want to do, what you want to

do it. You know, I just it's I don't have kids, but you know, when I see my friends who are black, um preparing to give birth or or raising their kids, it seems like there is this constant refrain, right, which is, how do I protect them but make sure that like their back is always straight right, and their chin is always up, and their shoulders are always back, and they know who they are, but they also know where they are right. And I think that for many it is

just that constant push and pull. You know, one of the chapters, I guess, the your Um opening one about waiting to be called wanting looking to be called a nigger and you're, you know, you're seventeen, and you're and you're you know, reflecting on that and I remember the first time that I was called a nigger, and I was sixteen, and I was at school in a you know, in my in my ap government in history class, and I remember coming home and saying to my mother, I

don't understand how this happened, Like I thought that racism was dead. And my mother looked at me and was just like, oh, my god, I have done you the greatest disservice. Right. That's why I will I will never forget that for as long as I live, that she was so appalled at the fact that she had reared me and raised me in this wide ass suburb of of Long Island. Uh. And I was supposed to then just assume that, you know, I wasn't supposed to be

entitled like everybody else was. I wasn't supposed to have the things that they have, um and think of myself in the same way and carry myself in the same way that they did. That like the world was my oyster. And so when I was reading, you know, it's just like what was the what was the feeling there? And I loved and I love the way that you talked about your your your parents and their use of the word.

And there's always you know, you go back and forth between like the Oprah generation and the younger generations and the interpretation um of the word and the phrasing and hip hop and this that and the other thing. What was? What was? Tell? Tell folks, who who are you know? Picking up picking up the book about that chapter? Oh when um my agent Karya McKinnon um first um brought up first approachman um with the idea to invite a memoir, m I kind of pushed back a bit because I

that wasn't my idea. My original idea for this book would be a group of essays kind of similar in structure, in form, and theme and content to how vsp is.

Where let's say you have one chapter that's that's like a deconstruction of a white privilege, and then you have another chapter that's like a really in depth book spas or something, you know what I mean, another chapter about Kanye or you know, there's a book of essays about you know, different topics, some of them silly, some of them not as silly, more sober but not really not really connected to me, more connected to my five and

ability when connect to me. And she was like, you know, I think that would be a great idea, but I think an even better one for you is to write the story about you, about your life and about you know, all the vulnerabilities and anxieties and acts and insecurities and all that that come with it. And then you can insert those cultural and racial insight and observations into that narrator. And so I agree because she's smarter than me and um.

And so when I when I first sat down to write this book, first started thinking about it, that story about my parents that's in that first chapter was like I have, it's basically like the fullcirm of the book, because you know, for people haven't read I start the book, first chapter starts with a story where my parents are like racial harassed. I like this deli Pittsburg, you know, white boy behind a counter caused them niggers. My dad fights them, my mom is there, and my grandmother's there.

They're throwing them like they're breaking glass. They're like there's like there's olives everywhere and pepperoni, even ice cream. It's like they basically cause a race ride. Okay, they get arrested, but then they get let go by a black sergeant

or whatever who takes a look at them. It's like, you know what y'all are racey harassed, so you could go home, And I said, And my parents are the sort of people who like their story, you know, so barbecue's, birthday parties, wedding receptions, cook outs, whatever, They're always telling the story about this time, this amazing story. And so I'm like eight, nineteen years old here in the story

all the time. But I had never been called a nigger before, but I kind of wanted to just I would have a cool story, like my parents said, And then it became like this sort of thing where it's like, yo,

what am I? And again, this is me as like a eleven twelve an adolescent, as a young as a as a young teenager, questioning whether I was like black enough, whether white people considered me black enough to be called anager, and then just the absurdity of like of even thinking that and having that five and I'm a thinly called one from seventeen. I wait for a bus, a city bus, to take me somewhere in some white boy speeds by the four that's fifty in, screams nigger out of his

passionate windows, and just keeps driving past. And you know, when it happened, like a part of me wanted to call like come back, whips lay now this is my moment. And then you know, you go about your life. I'll go about mine. I don't have a story, but he just kept driving and and it just gone on me

right at that moment. How ridiculous it was too to give any sort of of of any sort of weight, any sort of prominence, any sort of important you know, um of my racial identity um and basically or the ridiculous sense of basing my racial identity on how white people feel about right right right um and And so

that's the first chapter of the book. And I wanted to make it first because one, it's you know, the book is told in a chronological order, so that you know, by the end of the booker you know, deals with

stuff that happens, you know, more in the present. But also I want people to know what type of book they were getting into, because that's a nigger in that chapter probably twenty five tive and and and also get the concept of one we called it mm hmmmm in the absurdity, in the in the humor in your two it's like, Okay, this is this is what I'm getting. This is this is what I got into. Will read this book, okay, damon Um. I also I have a bone to pick with you because you said you said

something very violent in this book. You said that Darius love Hall was trash, I mean, and I felt I felt, I felt abused. I felt like you took what is this sacred, sacred black film love Jones and turned it into something awful. And I want you, I want you to. I want you to explain yourself. I mean, it's it's if it's all there in the fact. I mean. So the to the movie starts, like, really, I don't you just need to watch the movie. Oh, don't tell me

to watch my favorite movie. I have watched this movie time and time again. In the first fifteen minutes. Okay, So all right, So the movie starts. He's at what the sanctuary, the name of the sanctuary. He meets Nina at the bar Nana was it? Nina? Nina? Nina? Okay? Play yes, thank you, thank you. Daniel Um meets Nina at the bar, um for Twitter or whatever. She goes back to her see he goes on stage. He reads a poem that's addressed to her. Now, of course you're

watching that movie. It's like, holy shit, that's the coolest thing ever that niggas John Blaze, Oh my god. But no one could write a poem that quickly, No one, and in the three minutes to talk from him being at the bar to be him being offstage with the instrumentation and everything that went along with it. So what really happened, what likely happened, is that he wrote a poem, he had already write a poem for some other woman,

met her. It's like, you know what, yeah, I'm gonna substitute and substitute her out wrong, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's definitely what we do. But you know, okay, and then and then and then this is even worse. And then he sees he shows that better crib. Yes, and randomly did he get did he get her address

from her? Yeo, he got it from his homegirl who happened to be working in a record store that she's shopping in correct, which which I'm which I'm pretty certain as a crime it is, I'm pretty suposed to that also wrote oh yeah, crime go that that basically encasulates every romantic comedy from like nineteen eighty five or like two thousand and five. Correct a crime. But also romantic. It's a lifetime special waiting to happen. I mean, it

is essentially what it is. But I mean, you know, I had I grew up watching that movie and waiting to find my sanctuary and waiting to find that click of just slick ass, smart, brilliant, sexy, gorgeous black folk just being black and fine. I mean, I love the movie. I love the movie. I love The thing I love most about the movie is how in love Karen Twitcher is with his characters. Like you could tell that he

he loves these people. He loves the way they talk, he loves the way and look, he loves the things that they do, and that sort of love that's sort of just infatuation with the with the characters. He's creating, the characters, he's de picture he's depicting. It's it's visceral, and it's one of those things that even you know, twenty years after, you know, twenty years later, over twenty years later, it's still you know, it's still sticks. It's still like a vital part of that story, you know.

And so even though Darius probably should be in prison, the movie itself, the movie itself was great, and yeah, and I know it's it's it's it's cliche and it's a little sacarana part, but I still watch it and I feel now it's it's I gotta tell you, it's still one of my favorites. But I could not help but cackle out loud as you were basically telling me that this this leading man is a stalker and is a womanizer and belongs in jail. Um I it was.

It was peak damon for me. It was peaked Damon Young when I can read and laugh all the way out loud and be like this nigga is crazy. UM, So damon. You know at um at the we're we're in living in this extraordinary um extraordinary time, um where we're living in the midst of this global pandemic that is hitting us, hitting our community harder than it's hitting any other community, and it is I think that the virus in and of itself is exasperating just what it

really means to be living while black in America. All of the things that we have said, researchers have told us about, politicos have talked about, activists have fought about, we're seeing play out where in fact, to your point,

when we opened up this conversation. Being black in America is an extreme sport and in many ways you are taking your life in your hands every single day depending on where you are, what your social socioeconomic class is, what your health status is, all of these different things. How are you grappling with that understanding in this moment? Lee? Probably?

I mean, I don't know. Like I then, we were joking beforehand before the call started about you know, you ask how I was doing, Yeah, and I said that, you know my response now it's like the stereotypical like church mom, black church moll respond, black church grandma response. It's like, yeah, I'm just you know, just taking it one day at a time. It's one foot after the other, and you know, every day at wake up every day, open my eyes and the Good Lord, because that's how

I feel now. Yeah, like I you know, I um so, I just wrote a piece actually for the Washington Post today on Day's Friday, the What's the Day? The tenth April tenth about just the absurdity of being told, you know, if you're black that you know, if you go outside and you're wearing a hoodie or you're wearing like a math or anything, else that obscure is your face. You're going to be thought up as a threat. You know, you might get shot, you might get it cont calling,

you might get shot. Whatever. And now out they were masks on ye and just that that that that I get. It's irony. Actually it's it's it's an absurd and brutal irony of you know, being just having this one thing indocrinated into you. And then with this pandemic along with all the other brutalities, along with all the other brutalities

that we have to experience. Now it's like, okay, now you're telling me to wear a mask, and and and the thing is and then there has been there's already been reports of black people getting harassed by law enforcement for wearing masks in public, like that's happening, Like there were, um, there were two young black men who were harassed by some police and Walmart kind of on the kind of on camera because they were massed up and Walmart police

officer told them to leave the store. And so and we also know that no, yeah, we have this national mandate you know for social distancing, and implicit in that is to kind of cattle on people who are not social distancing. But what ends up happening is now you're having white people called a police on black people who are concerting in public. So you're just finding more and

creating unique ways for blackness to be criminalized. And so along with us being uniquely vulnerable to this illness, we're also uniquely criminalized when we're trying to protect ourselves from it. I swear every day you can't win for losing um.

It's just extraordinary, extraordinary, And I you know, I must, I must say to you that you're writing in so many ways, in so many different times, has gotten me through when there are bad headlines and I'm like, let me go and see what he's saying, um, and go to look at your latest writing, because you have such a beautiful way of being able to um even in the most even covering the most ghastly race relations, be able to sprinkle in humor that brings my shoulders down

just a little bit, right. And and it's and it's with that ease and the eloquent way in which you put word to paper, I think is is so needed, um and and so incredibly inspiring. The last question that I ask folks on PM mood all the time is about how you get in the mood to change the world. How do you get yourself together? How do I get myself together to change the world? Oh? Wow, Um, I mean I eat. I eat a lot of grits and bacon and eggs. I'm a big breakfast mood person. I

had a breakfast. We had a brunch wedding. Um, and so I um, that's my fuel. I guess I could eat even very healthy um in robots breakfast. That's how I get That's how I get in the mood. I love it. And then maybe then maybe I'll go listen to some um, I don't know, I don't even know what. Maybe listen to marmon, listen to What's going on? Mm hmmm. That could play on on on repeat, on absolute repeat these days. Damon, young author of What Doesn't Kill You

Makes You Blacker? You must pick it up, Damon, And thank you so much for joining PM mood and for the continued brilliance that you gift the world with. It's much. Thank you, Thank you Danielle for having me. This is great fun. And yes, thank you to funk away from everybody. Correct correct, Thanks for listening to this week's PM Mood. Just a quick announcement, my other political podcast, Woke af Daily, is now on Patreon. You get me five days a week.

Forget this, folks, just five dollars a month. That is five fresh shows a week for just five dollars a month. Thanks for staying loyal and helping to support independent media, and you can continue listening to PM Mood for free every single week. Stay in the PM mood to change the world.