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A review by bookofcinz
Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump by Ben Philippe
3.0
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.
Ben Philippe was born in Haiti, left at an early age to live in Canada with his parents and spent majority of his twenties in the US studying in NYC. In his first collection of essays Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Friend he details what life is like being the only Black person in different spaces. In his introduction he notes:
Because of this wrinkle of having been born Haitian, raised Canadian, and having adopted America as my third home in adulthood, conversation both about and around race have always been a fixture in my life.
It is through these conversations and experiences he is able hilariously and soberly tell us about his life. We read about how he lived a plush life in Haiti, having gone to school with expats. He left at an early age for Canada where he had to assimilate to life in this cold, far away country. Of course, looking back he was able to see all the microaggressions and the ways in which he was discriminated against. Fast forward to moving to NYC and attending university, he is thrown into what life is really like for a Black man in America.
I really enjoyed this book more than I thought it would. Ben Philippe’s writing is hilarious, self-depreciating without being cringy and truly vulnerable in moments when it needs to be. That is very hard line to walk and he does it really well. I am always looking to read more about the Haitian experience and I think this may have been the first book I read where someone was a Haitian of means who left the island on “their terms”. I loved his relationship with his mother, how he documents their early move to Canada and what finding a new community.
I think what stood out for me also was how he detailed a breakup with his roommate who happened to be his best friend. It is not every day you get a male perspective how sad and heart breaking it is to break up with your other male friend. There is also the underlining of racism and power dynamics. Well executed!
Yes, there were some moments/experiences he went over a lot and that made the memoir dragged a lot. Overall, I would recommend this one!
Ben Philippe was born in Haiti, left at an early age to live in Canada with his parents and spent majority of his twenties in the US studying in NYC. In his first collection of essays Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Friend he details what life is like being the only Black person in different spaces. In his introduction he notes:
Because of this wrinkle of having been born Haitian, raised Canadian, and having adopted America as my third home in adulthood, conversation both about and around race have always been a fixture in my life.
It is through these conversations and experiences he is able hilariously and soberly tell us about his life. We read about how he lived a plush life in Haiti, having gone to school with expats. He left at an early age for Canada where he had to assimilate to life in this cold, far away country. Of course, looking back he was able to see all the microaggressions and the ways in which he was discriminated against. Fast forward to moving to NYC and attending university, he is thrown into what life is really like for a Black man in America.
I really enjoyed this book more than I thought it would. Ben Philippe’s writing is hilarious, self-depreciating without being cringy and truly vulnerable in moments when it needs to be. That is very hard line to walk and he does it really well. I am always looking to read more about the Haitian experience and I think this may have been the first book I read where someone was a Haitian of means who left the island on “their terms”. I loved his relationship with his mother, how he documents their early move to Canada and what finding a new community.
I think what stood out for me also was how he detailed a breakup with his roommate who happened to be his best friend. It is not every day you get a male perspective how sad and heart breaking it is to break up with your other male friend. There is also the underlining of racism and power dynamics. Well executed!
Yes, there were some moments/experiences he went over a lot and that made the memoir dragged a lot. Overall, I would recommend this one!