Book
A measure of belonging : twenty-one writers of color on the new American South
Publication Information
Spartanburg, SC : Hub City Press, [2020]
Physical Description
xvi, 189 pages ; 20 cm
Summary
"This fierce collection celebrates the incredible diversity in the contemporary South by featuring essays by twenty-one of the finest young writers of color living and working in the region today, who all address a central question: Who is welcome? Kiese Laymon navigates the racial politics of publishing while recording his audiobook in Mississippi. Regina Bradley moves to Indiana and grapples with a landscape devoid of her Southern cultural touchstones, like Popeyes and OutKast. Aruni Kashyap apartment hunts in Athens and encounters a minefield of invasive questions. Frederick McKindra delves into the particularly Southern history of Beyonce's black majorettes. Assembled by editor and essayist Cinelle Barnes, essays in A Measure of Belonging: Writers of Color on the New American South acknowledge that from the DMV to the college basketball court to doctors' offices, there are no shortage of places of tension in the American South. Urgent, necessary, funny, and poignant, these essays from new and established voices confront the complexities of the South's relationship with race, uncovering the particular difficulties and profound joys of being a Southerner in the 21st century"--
Contents
- Introduction / Cinelle Barnes
- A new normal South : Southern cooking by Indian American chefs offers refreshing ways to connect / Osayi Endolyn
- Foreign and domestic : on color, comfort, and crime in Miami / Jaswinder Bolina
- Face / Soniah Kamal
- My sixty-five-year-old roommate / Jennifer Hope Choi
- That's not actually true / Kiese Laymon
- Duos / Devi Laskar
- I feel most Southern in the hip-hop of my adolescence : on black Southern mobility, intra-regionality & internalized misogyny / Joy Priest
- Suddenly, an island girl / M. Evelina Galang
- Treacherous joy : an epistle to the South / Tiana Clark
- Nuisance : an essay about home / Latria Graham
- Are you Muslim? and other questions white landlords ask me / Aruni Kashyap
- Auntie / Minda Honey
- Outta the Souf / Regina Bradley
- Dysplasia / Natalia Sylvester
- White devil in blue : Duke basketball, religion, and modern day slavery in the new South / Christena Cleveland
- Southern, not a belle / Nichole Perkins
- White, other, and Black / Ivelisse Rodriguez
- Ain't misbehavin / Gary Jackson
- The rich, Southern history of Black college majorettes / Frederick McKindra
- Pass / Toni Jensen
- Gum / Diana Cejas.