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A review by pattydsf
Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump by Ben Philippe
4.0
”Being a Black man in America has been an entirely different experience from being Black everywhere before. Blackness is just different here. Here, it comes with a community and a history but also with an immediate fear and a proportional rage at having to be so afraid all the time. And, make no mistake, white people: I am truly afraid all the time.”
“No one is apolitical. Not a single person. The few people I’ve met who proudly consider themselves as such tend to assume that not paying attention, not voting, isn’t in itself a privilege. That it is not in itself proof that their day-to-day existence won’t be affected by choosing to stay on the sidelines, tending to literal gardens. The fact of the matter is that if you have a life that leaves you foolproof to politics, your politics approximate to “privileged.”
I thought I was checking out a humorous book of essays about a Haitian, Canadian black man trying to navigate the vicissitudes of race in United States. After typing out that sentence, I realize how mistaken I was. However, many of the quotes about this book said it was funny or humorous or witty. And I will admit, I did laugh a few times. However, this book is so much more than I thought. I am so glad I read this because I now have a better idea of who Philippe is and I am thrilled to have met him. He is real to me and that is what he was aiming for.
This is from an interview in the Los Angeles Times, “In the past, he (Philippe) has worked hard at making others feel comfortable. ‘I figured out in white spaces I would be the funny, lighthearted Black guy you can joke about anything with,’ he says. ‘That was my default social speed.’
But in the book, he rethinks his code-switching. In the book, he isn’t trying to meet your expectations.
‘I wanted to complicate that idea,’ he says. ‘I want to put readers in the shoes of a very specific Black friend. The cover of the book has this shapeless outline of a Black friend, but I hope by the end you have that shape filled in. It’s me, born in Haiti, raised in Canada. I’m in academia and the arts and I’m still trying to figure everything out, and I can be very moody and very angry at times.’”
Thank you, Philippe, for your book. I learned a lot and you made me think about parts of life in the US that I know little about.
“No one is apolitical. Not a single person. The few people I’ve met who proudly consider themselves as such tend to assume that not paying attention, not voting, isn’t in itself a privilege. That it is not in itself proof that their day-to-day existence won’t be affected by choosing to stay on the sidelines, tending to literal gardens. The fact of the matter is that if you have a life that leaves you foolproof to politics, your politics approximate to “privileged.”
I thought I was checking out a humorous book of essays about a Haitian, Canadian black man trying to navigate the vicissitudes of race in United States. After typing out that sentence, I realize how mistaken I was. However, many of the quotes about this book said it was funny or humorous or witty. And I will admit, I did laugh a few times. However, this book is so much more than I thought. I am so glad I read this because I now have a better idea of who Philippe is and I am thrilled to have met him. He is real to me and that is what he was aiming for.
This is from an interview in the Los Angeles Times, “In the past, he (Philippe) has worked hard at making others feel comfortable. ‘I figured out in white spaces I would be the funny, lighthearted Black guy you can joke about anything with,’ he says. ‘That was my default social speed.’
But in the book, he rethinks his code-switching. In the book, he isn’t trying to meet your expectations.
‘I wanted to complicate that idea,’ he says. ‘I want to put readers in the shoes of a very specific Black friend. The cover of the book has this shapeless outline of a Black friend, but I hope by the end you have that shape filled in. It’s me, born in Haiti, raised in Canada. I’m in academia and the arts and I’m still trying to figure everything out, and I can be very moody and very angry at times.’”
Thank you, Philippe, for your book. I learned a lot and you made me think about parts of life in the US that I know little about.