#wecastashadow

[freeqthamighty]

Yayyyy I got home and was able to go listen to @mauriceruffin read from #WeCastAShadow and hear about his thought behind the book 🥰 he even left a sweet note in my copy which I’ll for sure be taking on the next plane . So proud of you Maurice , you’re an inspiration to a lot of writers and your personality is possibly better than your writing 💛 also me and @sirenmouths are so stylish together 🌞 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt2AXAcgvc8/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=i1jh9uyuut1e

#wecastashadow

[books4us]

The initial question that one grapples with here; Can one show love or teach love if said one doesn’t love himself? The unnamed Black narrator is an attorney at a prestigious law firm, and so has accomplished himself against all odds in a near future society that is hell bent on the destruction of Black people. But, his dilemma is trying to secure a future for his son that is absent the aggressions that he has faced in his lifetime.

His son, Nigel is the product of a white mother and Black father and has a birthmark that his father is afraid will turn ever darker and take over his entire body, enveloping him into everlasting Blackness. To avoid this fate, he dreams, works and prepares for the day when he can afford to demelaninize his son and remove all traces of Blackness and the ability to produce Blackness in any offspring. The horrors of a world ruled by white supremacy is front and center here. That may make it tough reading for some, but the reality of where we are now, and where we might be-concerning race relations- is not only plausible and possible but indeed probable!

The bigger challenge for me was not the external, but the internal. Where is the self-love? The esteem built on knowledge of earlier struggles? It is severely lacking in this character, as evidenced by the book’s first sentences.

“My name doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that I’m a phantom, a figment, a man who was mistaken for waitstaff twice that night—odd, given my outfit.”

So bleaching creams, big hats and admonishments about the sun are stand-ins for love and caring. The unnamed narrator is keenly aware of his self-caused situation and Ruffin at times has him (the narrator) directly address the reader.

“Now I’m perfectly aware of the judgmental thoughts running through your head as you read these words. I suspect your pupils have dilated, your lips are agape, your heart filled with venom toward me.”

This coming after he smeared the stinking and stinging bleaching cream on his son, Nigel. And doing this he nervily asks, “You know I love you right? One day this will all be in the rear view.”

Even as he chalks up his own station in life to luck, he is not willing to take that chance with Nigel.

“It’s because I’m lucky, and I know it. Somehow the grinding effects of a world built to hurt me have not yet eliminated my every opportunity for a happy life, as is the case for so many of My brethren. The world is a centrifuge that patiently waits to separate my Nigel from his basic human dignity. I don’t have to tell you that this is an unjust planet.” p. 134. And he justifies his behavior thusly,

Ruffin gives us a few examples here, the basketball player being ejected more often, the applicants name on a job application, apartment evictions, arrests for vagrancy, etc. in the middle of these all too familiar examples for Black folk in the “Home of the Free” he again allow the narrator to speak directly to the reader,

“Admittedly, none of these examples are particularly shocking, and I fear that I risk insulting your intelligence, dear reader, but ride with me awhile longer.”

Every ‘successful’ conscious Black man in America has had some variation of this thought at one time or another. James Baldwin once remarked, ‘to be a Negro and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage.’

This is the grand question of the novel, “What if I can ensure that my boy is not perceived as a Black man? What if he is simply a man? The sadness is contained in the contemplation of such perception. You will laugh, curse, cry, and be twisted in the end.

A thoughtful and thought provoking debut written with a confident, carefree prose sprinkled with bits of humor. There are some things so devastating, disgusting and distasteful that humor is the only way to deliver such truths. And for an author to come out the gate this way is nothing short of amazing. I think big things are in store for Mr. Ruffin and I plan to be there as witness! Read this one. Surely, it will be seen on best of 2019 lists!

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