![]() ![]() When we were too young to know better, we were unknowingly guided into an apathetic posture towards issues of discrimination that were mostly swept under the rug but have recently come back into the public eye with fresh urgency. Having been born the same year as Mychal Denzel Smith - coming of age during the delusional post-Reagan 90s during which nearly everyone tried to teach us that sexism and racism were problems only of the past - I too share Smith's inclination towards borderline obnoxious activism. The questions Smith asks in this book are urgent-for him, for the martyrs and the tokens, and for the Trayvons that could have been and are still waiting. Smith unapologetically upends reigning assumptions about black masculinity, rewriting the script for black manhood so that depression and anxiety aren't considered taboo, and feminism and LGBTQ rights become part of the fight. In Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching, Mychal Denzel Smith chronicles his own personal and political education during these tumultuous years, describing his efforts to come into his own in a world that denied his humanity. It means celebrating powerful moments of black self-determination for LeBron James, Dave Chappelle, and Frank Ocean. It means witnessing the deaths of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, and too many more. How do you learn to be a black man in America? For young black men today, it means coming of age during the presidency of Barack Obama. ![]() ![]() New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice ![]()
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