How To Be Black

The other day I saw the trailer for the upcoming film "Dear White People". As a 16 year old black girl who lives in a predominantly white suburb (technically its own city, but it might as well be a suburb) it's safe to say that I can relate. The film's premise is that a biracial girl starts a radio show called "Dear White People" where she gives white people tips on how to stop being racist, however unintentional it may be. The thing is that a lot of people, especially white people and LeTyrone, a young, urban, African-American, man, growing up in an unsteady area with an African-American single mother who works two jobs because his equally African-American father died in a drug raid (this is actually just a white person trying really hard to seem black), think that the film is very racist.

After seeing this I got really revved up on the topic of pointing out and fixing racism in today's America and started researching things similar to the film. I came across a bunch of PoC YouTubers who address topics like those brought up in the film and one of them I found was Akilah SmoothieFreak. She was talking about one of her favorite books being How to Be Black. So I looked it up and found out it was critically acclaimed and actually a really great book even though it had a bit of product placement for the blog "Stuff White People Like".

If you read "Books For Adults" you know that my book store options are next to none and as previously stated living in a predominantly white suburb (what suburb isn't tbh) didn't help. I didn't even bother to go to any of them because who likes some semi-tall string bean black girl dressed in mostly black asking you where she can find a book called How to Be Black. Who is honestly going to help?! My need for the book did trump my contempt of side eye from English majors at their summer job, but not enough for me to actually see the side eye: so I called. I called Hastings and Signs of Life neither of which carried the book. Personally I think it's weird to carry ample copies of the House of Night series and exactly zero copies of a critically acclaimed New York Times Best Seller written by a Harvard graduate, but I digress.  The Signs of Life guy was talking to someone in the background about a spill on aisle 5 (there are no aisle there I've been)...let's just say I caught your shade okay, and I brought a flashlight that's why you're on blast (is this even putting him on blast??? was he throwing shade on me????? idk????). Long story short I received sound side eye but I trudged on.

All of a sudden, like the time I hit my head meeting the floor of the pre-k bus (I have a permanent scar) it hit me. I own a kindle!! Why have I been buying tangible copies of books when all I had to do was walk into my parents room and use the Kindle. My parents are really chill about us buying books because books enhance our mind or some weird hippy reason that's probably the same reason why my mom hides things like eggplant in our food. It was an extremely simple process that was nearly identical to this

Me: "Can I buy a book on Kindle?"
My dad: "Okay."

Anyways, I'm extremely excited to read this book because

• The author's name is Baratunde Thurston and a really close family friend's name is Babatunde
• he let's me debate politics with him in a non-hostile way it's great
• I'm catching a kind of Mindy Kaling witty humor vibe 
• I read a few excerpts that were hilarious 
• He went to the posterchild of Ivy League schools: Harvard
• The Ivy League is my baby
• I'm not Malcolm Gladwell, so you can bet your mother's life that I think that Harvard will give you a better education than Cloud County Community College

All in all, I feel like this book is going to be a 10/10 would recommend to everyone to read, even though I haven't opened the first page yet.

Lastly, I would like to thank Amazon, for being the only book store to not sound side eye me today and for having the book in stock even if it's always there because it's in the cloud.

Books for Adults

Being a 16 year old girl I have never ventured outside of the young adult realm, I've always found good books to read in the YAR section. As the years have passed and the books around my room continue to pile I felt a need to move away from badly written books about vampires and Harry Styles. Which brought me to my search for a book by an adult for adults. A few things drew me to my first adult book

1. It's by the hilarious Mindy Kaling
2. The Mindy Project is my favorite show
3. She's Ivy League educated just like a bunch of my favorite people
4. I'm in the business of supporting fellow women of color

So today I embarked on a journey to find Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). Where I live only has a few bookstores, Borders having shut down my options were limited to Hastings, the Dusty Bookshelf and Signs of Life. The Dusty Bookshelf being local and also a buy/sell store was crossed off the list without checking. Signs of Life is extremely Christian and although that's where I purchased Steve Jobs I did not believe it to have a book by Mindy Kaling, so again I decided not to check.

Upon arriving at Hastings my first thought was to go to the Biography section, assuming that the book was an autobiography/ memoir. The book was not there. Either I'm stupid or Hasting sets things up oddly because after asking a worker I found out it was in the Humor section. This should have made my search easier but I couldn't find the Humor section. So I had to ask another employee who referred me to another employee who then helped me find the section. I am a teenaged girl full of pride so I dismissed the third worker to help me in my odyssey. Then I was lost again because the books went in a loose alphabetical order, understandably so because people must move the books around and try to place them correctly
 but not get it correct.

Anyways I found the book after a while and I got my dad to buy it for me. Which brings me to the price. I bought the book for $14.99 which is very pricey for a paperback if you ask me. I checked amazon when I got home and it was $5 for a used copy, mine was not a used copy but you get my gist. On kindle it was $4.99 which was astonishing. According to Google at Barnes and Noble it was only $5. I am heartbroken that I was cheated out of $10 but having this book almost counteracts this dismay.

Just by looking at the front and back covers I

1. Assumed it's a very good book because it's a paperback with a matte finish (much appreciated lack of gloss)
2. Wondered where I can find the background because it's the definition of classy
3. Wanted to ask Mindy what she does to her hair to make it so nice
4. Realized she's Indian and know that she just rolls out of bed with hair that millions of people buy for hundreds of dollars
5. Giggled at the little Mindy on the back cover
6. Said "YAAAS MINDY MY QUEEN"

It's safe to say that I'm ready to read this book.