Image credit: Billy Dee
Today is Tuesday. That’s not actually true. Well, it might be. It depends. The truth is, well, complicated sometimes. Kiese Laymon, who describes himself as a “Black southern writer,” is an English professor and winner of several prestigious awards including the 2022 MacArthur Genius Grant. His novels and essays explore conditions of race, class, body image, and more. In this 2019 essay from Scalawag magazine, he deftly employs the refrain “that’s not actually true” to explore some of the jagged boundaries between experience and expectation, reality and perception, and history and possibility, all regions where everything gets tossed together in a jumble of contradictions. His conclusion makes clear, however, that what he is actually addressing are the effects of centuries of racism embodied in the inner life of a 21st century Black southern writer.
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