We Cant Breathe, Jabari Asim
We Cant Breathe, Jabari Asim
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We Can't Breathe
On Black Lives, White Lies, and the Art of Survival

Author: Jabari Asim

Narrator: Jabari Asim

Unabridged: 5 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/12/2019


Synopsis

A Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the EssayInsightful and searing essays that celebrate the vibrancy and strength of black history and culture in America by critically acclaimed writer Jabari AsimIn We Can’t Breathe, Jabari Asim disrupts what Toni Morrison has exposed as the “Master Narrative” and replaces it with a story of black survival and persistence through art and community in the face of centuries of racism. In eight wide-ranging and penetrating essays, he explores such topics as the twisted legacy of jokes and falsehoods in black life; the importance of black fathers and community; the significance of black writers and stories; and the beauty and pain of the black body. What emerges is a rich portrait of a community and culture that has resisted, survived, and flourished despite centuries of racism, violence, and trauma. These thought-provoking essays present a different side of American history, one that doesn’t depend on a narrative steeped in oppression but rather reveals black voices telling their own stories.

About Jabari Asim

JABARI ASIM was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. For eleven years, he was an editor at The Washington Post, where he also wrote a syndicated column on politics, popular culture and social issues, and he served for ten years as the editor in chief of Crisis magazine, the NAACP's flagship journal of politics, culture and ideas. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Creative Arts and the author of six books for adults, including The N Word, and nine books for children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kevin

“Jesus, they say, rose after three days. Emmett did too. After his abductors tortured and killed him, they tied a seventy-pound cotton gin fan around what was left of his neck. Wanting no one to know how much he’d suffered for the sins of his nation, they tossed his remains into the Tallahatchie Riv......more

Goodreads review by Allison

This collection blew me away bc I didn’t know what I was getting into. Jabari Asim had been completely off my radar but it sounded interesting so I picked it up m. He is such a brilliant writer both in terms of his language and analysis. Really stunning. I highly recommend this collection and I’m ex......more