How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays(39)

After finishing this book, I finally get what he means.

I hope you can read this book and know that I listened and I watched. I want you to be proud of the teacher, writer, and worker that I’ve become. Thank you for being my first teacher. I learned, and I’m doing everything I can do to stop slowly killing myself and others in America. I’m sorry I was bad at being human for so long. I love you and I just want you, Grandma, Aunt Linda, Aunt Sue, Nicole, little Amiel, my father, my students, my state, and our people to choose life even though our nation has perfected making murder so easy.

I don’t want to be a murderer any more, Mama. I choose life.

Your child,

Kiese





Acknowledgments


A VERSION OF “HIP HOP STOLE MY SOUTHERN BLACK Boy” appeared in the anthology Longman’s Hip Hop Reader. A version of “Kanye West and HaLester Myers Are Better at Their Job” appeared in the literary journal Mythium. Versions of “We Will Never Ever Know,” “Our Kind of Ridiculous,” and “How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America” appeared on gawker.com. A version of “The Worst of White Folks” appeared on ESPN.com. A version of “Eulogy for Three Black Boys Who Lived” appeared on Esquire.com. Versions of all of these pieces first appeared at kieselaymon.com.

I’d like to thank my aunt Sue Coleman for her contribution to my life and this book. Thank you for praying and willing yourself and our family through the sour and sweet times.

I want to thank my brothers, Darnell Moore, Kai Green, Mychal Denzel Smith, and Marlon Peterson for blessing the pages of this book with clarity, brilliance, love, and literally making our word bond.

Thank you, Linda, for wide eyes and honesty. Thanks again to my grandma, Catherine Coleman, for grace and red eyes. Thanks, Nicole, for all that gumption. Thank you, Uncle Jimmy, for haunting me in the most beautiful ways possible. Thank you, Mama, for being proud and brilliant. You were my first teacher. I’d like to thank my father for stepping back into my life with more passion and generosity than I ever imagined. As you always say, we’re in a better space.

Thank you, Professor Eve Dunbar, for superb guidance and care in the midst of professional mess, and always reminding me not to sell my work short.

Thanks to Carlos Alamo, Luis Inoa, Hiram Perez, and the entire Black and Latino Engagement Crew.

Thank you, Emma Carmichael, for that genius, space, and trust. Thanks to AJ Daulerio, Tom Scocca, Jim Cooke, and John Cook for the weekend.

Thanks to Amanda for being the best research and editorial assistant on earth.

Thanks to the art and activism of James Baldwin, Cassandra Wilson, Charlie Braxton, Josie Pickens, Margaret Walker Alexander, David Foster Wallace, Imani Perry, dream hampton, Rosa Cabrera, Sophia Chang, Heesok Chang, Matt Parker, Adisa Ajamu, Hua Hsu, Amitava Kumar, Noel Didla, and her entire Jackson crew.

Thanks to Doug, Eileen, Jali, Zach, and Agate Bolden for all that masterful work and trust.

Thanks to the inventor of the internet. You did good.

Thanks to my Facebook family and my students for being way smarter than me. I hope I didn’t waste your time.





About the Author

Kiese Laymon was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. He graduated from Oberlin College and earned his MFA from Indiana University. Laymon is a contributing editor at Gawker.com and has written for numerous publications, including Esquire and ESPN.com. He is an associate professor of English and Africana Studies at Vassar College. His first novel, Long Division, was published by Agate Bolden in June 2013.