the terror, grace, and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in contemporary America and what it means to parent our children in a persistently unjust world.
Emotionally raw and deeply reflective, Imani Perry issues an unflinching challenge to society to see Black children as deserving of humanity.
She admits fear and frustration for her African American sons in a society that is increasingly racist and at times seems irredeemable.
However, as a mother, feminist, writer, and intellectual, Perry offers an unfettered expression of lovefinding beauty and possibility in lifeand she exhorts her children and their peers to find the courage to chart their own paths and find steady footing and inspiration in Black tradition.
Perry draws upon the ideas of figures such as James Baldwin, W, E. B. DuBois, Emily Dickinson, Toni Morrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Ida B, Wells. She shares vulnerabilities and insight from her own life and from encounters in places as varied as the West Side of Chicago Birmingham, Alabama and New England prep schools.
With original art for the cover by Ekua Holmes, Breathe offers a broader meditation on race, gender, and the meaning of a life well lived and is also an unforgettable lesson in Black resistance and resilience.
This is one of the most beautifully written books Ive read in a while, potentially ever, There is so much depth to it that Im sure I will need to reread it to grasp every detail.
Highly recommend that everyone reads it,
“How do you become in a world bent on you not being and not becoming”
“Your love is an exceeding sun.
” I read this book in order to participate in a churchwide reading effort, and I wanted to like it.
Truly, I did. But it was still a slog, I confess to being a practical, downtoearth sort of person, I'm not particularly proud of that I confess as well that most poetry and virtually all descriptive tags alongside pieces of modern art in museums leave me scratching my head in confusion.
. . and significant parts of this book felt exactly like that to me,
Some parts rang very true: I am a mother, and a reader, I get the anxieties all mothers share, trying to keep their children safe in a challenging world.
I get that raising Black children in American may be exponentially harder, I loved her description of reading which is "not just an avocation or a habit for me.
. . it is trying to understand the world around us, with a belief that it is possible to make it sweeter and better.
"
But I found myself halted by whole paragraphs of wordy text that meant, . . what No idea at all, "Proselytize this: calling all Black people from the ocean floor, the grand earth, the digested fecal matter turned over to murderous guards, the tended graves, the unmarked, the unnamed, the stolen, the thieves.
You need a practice of reconstitution, of filling up your font, Of cleansing the stench of humiliation, to face it another day without being defeated, " p.
"In a life of authorship and interpretation, analysis and architecture and deconstruction, love is my cipher of choice.
One that I have decided is better to have than the social contract or law sitting at your core, because you have entered it rather than simply being bound.
It has its own improvisation and contingent rules and ethics, Some we give to our young some they fashion from their own living, And they teach us in the process, They are doing so. Because every secondperson sentence devoted to them in these pages is to all of us, " p.
I see that the author is a highly regarded academic, Her "letter" may have been intended as more poetry than instruction, I wish I were a better audience for her efforts, Mea culpa. Who would think of knocking a book that is covertocover encouragement, esp, one as insightful, caring and openhearted as this
Author and Princeton University professor Imani Perry wrote this 'letter' at the suggestion of her editor.
She explains: I had a habit of talking about my sons on social media, I have also written them letters since they were infants, I could have also written one to the kind of children I don't have: girls, Maybe with more words about not letting yourself be eaten up by love, Or maybe a child who rejects categories wholly I could have written to them instead, and in truth the lessons would be virtually the same.
Looked at or felt another way, Perry could easily be writing to anyone with a heart to listen.
Even though she is at times specifically instructing her two boys on wise ways to face the world as they grow up Black, she is also imparting learned lessons re: how anyone can best 'combat'
a toooften hostile world.
As the book began, I wasn't completely sure what direction Perry was going in, It was as though she were skimming stones on the surface of what she wanted to say.
as the stream turned into more of a river,
Gems emerged: What would the complete dissembling of the kingdom of identity look like How would the viscera pulse under a cracked open surface Would we all shatter Could we put something together again I don't know.
I am losing some of my ability to dream a world, Auntie Simone once asked me, "What are your politics" That was many years ago.
I answered, "Poor people. " It was an awkward answer, But that is at the center, I think poverty is the product of an evil way of being, of hoarding and depriving, And it is part of a web, The history of conquest is a scourge of the human condition, I live for the life of the mind and heart, The fact is that I don't want to fit in at all, I want to continue in the strangeness that allows me to discover myself and others,
As well, the book contains interesting little known facts: George Washington's false teeth were not wood, as you may have heard.
Periodically, Perry reminds us that she is presenting herself flaws and all, When she talks about certain 'scuffles' with her sons or normal parent/child disconnects, she is also quick to assert that the bond is quantifiably in place.
They were actually made from a variety of materials, including Black humans' teeth, The father of our country stole our teeth, Our bite. Think about that.
I'm not completely sure of Perry's spiritual conclusions though she seems to lean toward a holistic approach to 'The Infinite'.
. . something I rather like. Coming from a Quaker background, Perry describes that sect's weekly worship meetings as: mostly silent except for when the spirit moves.
Perry doesn't explain much about the Quakers beyond that, I'm not a churchgoer. But I like the idea of a group gathered together in silence, with the idea of being quiet for a set period of time to let the Spirit move and to replenish without the need of words.
It is a faith ritual that is typically untethered from doctrine beyond a belief that God is in everyone and in the virtue of peace.
I could almost be convinced to attend that kind of 'church', If you've read Between the World and Me by TaNehisi Coates, you will appreciate the perspective of Imani Perry in Breathe: A Letter to My Sons.
Where Coates was contemplative in describing the effects of having grown up in a system designed for his failure and prosecutionon the way he approaches the fathering of his sonPerry is urgent in conveying that, though the world was not built to accommodate her son's Blackness, their Blackness is no less beautiful.
. . even if the world wants to convey otherwise,
There are fingers itching to have a reason to cage or even slaughter you.
My God, what hate for beauty this world breeds, They say they are afraid, I do not believe it is fear, It is bloodlust
I am a mother, I have a daughter and a son, Both are Black and far too closefor my own comfortto becoming independent parts of this stilted world my faith in humanity is tested every time I turn on the news, listen to the radio, or simply scroll my Instagram feed so I understand the place of fear and resignation Perry speaks.
It's frustrating to bear witness to the plethora of ways Blackness is devalued but see people attempt to invalidate those injustices.
Instead of asking the right questions, they choose to assign blame to the victim and ask how you could've stopped insert injustice here from happening.
As if the power to do so has ever belonged to you,
As an adult, you're able to see the inequities, and have the ability to articulate them to others but you know that won't matter.
The hopelessness, anger, and overall impotence that causes is heartrending and, when you add the fact of your own children soon being forced to traverse those same channels.
. . well it hits different.
No matter how "just so" I have tried, and often failed, to make things, I have known from the very first day of each of your lives that I cannot guarantee your safety.
.
That is what the voyeurs want to drink in, That is why they make me so mad, . . Because the truth is it is frightening,
Despite the despair and fear, though, it's clear Perry has a sliver of hope that her sons will find their way.
And while she wants them to be aware of how their Blackness will color, confuse, and complicate their place within the world, she doesn't want them to be so defined by the world's ignorance they fail to become who they're capable of being.
The routes have always been rough, West Africa to Barbados to South Carolina, Maryland to Alabama. To Chicago from Mississippi. By boat, by train, by foot, each time an unsteady cruelty, You, revenant, must learn to possess an impeccable balance, Claim your earth as you see fit and ride above it
Imani Perry has offered the world a proclamationin the form of this "letter"and I suspect her sons are not the only children for whom her words will be of value.
I enjoyed this thoroughly and recommend it highly,
Thank you to Edelweiss for this Advanced eGalley, Opinion is my own and was not influenced, Breathe is a gorgeously written letter that simultaneously captures a mothers greatest hopes, and fears for her black sons.
A documentation of the fight we must engage in to create space for the to claim space in a society that is becoming increasingly hostile toward people of color, Breathe is a must read.
I turned the final page with tears in my eyes and a determination to not fold under the pressure to let the fear consume the work of mothering.
Regardless of how hostile this world may be, they gone get the excellence my baby boy is serving up.
They getting it unapologetically too! This is a beautiful book that feels like the mothers version of Between the World and Me.
I will be forever changed by the authors explanation to her sons that, in order to protect them, she cant always fight for them in moments of racism because it could make the situation more dangerous.
Of course she says that and more so eloquently with the powerful, thoughtful, firm, loving, soothing, reassuring voice that only a mother has.
.