Social justice is an ideal. It’s not a reality. And while there are moments that make it feel tantalizingly close, the moment that follows often punts it right back to the far distance. Growing up black in south Seattle, journalist and essayist Marcus Harrison Green has a keen sense of exactly where and how things break down. From his own experience in the classroom and at the hands of police to his fierce dissection of the racism baked into media and journalism, Green makes poetry of the clarity that comes after long reflection.
In this collection, Green bears sharp witness to the Black Lives Matter movement, his own journey into and out of religious faith, his grandmother’s lessons, his battle with bipolar disorder, human mortality, blatant hypocrisy, and much more.
He shines a light on what hurts the most deeply in us: not only the brutal injustice of a world built by the powerful for the powerful, but the close proximity of that brutality to a persistent kernel of hope.
Yet because there is hope, there is conviction. Green never falters in the knowledge that the struggle itself is something to tie ourselves to and define ourselves by. With astute analyses, evocative imagery, profound empathy, and the ability to laugh at it all, these essays, even with their collective weight, leave us much lighter than they found us.
Finalist for the Washington State Book Award for Creative Nonfiction
Daftar Isi
Introduction by Sonya Green Ayears
The March Up the Mountaintop
Superman Taught Me Most of What I Know About Life
It Took Me Years to Believe That Black Lives Matter, Let Alone My Own
Filling Your Own Cup
What We Dread to Address
Confessions of An Imperfect Ally
Why An Atheist Says Amen
Life Before Death
When Your Only Hero Falls
To Young Storytellers of Color
A Ceaseless Cry
Searching for Identity in the Land of the Free
Black Lives, White Marchers
Patriarchy and Black Lives
Our Divergent Mourning
A Mind of Carnage
Pandemic Recovery and Gentrification
From Si’ahl to Seattle: Does a Wealthy City Owe Its First Residents Reparations?
A Troubled Childhood Should Not Be a Precursor to a Life of Crime
Our World Needs More Truth, Fewer Saviors
I Glimpsed Hope in a South Seattle Park
How Can We Heal? Braver Angels Test the Notion of Healing Across Political Divides
I Fear Everyday Encounters More Than I Do Hate Groups
How I Survived the Collision of Racism and the Stigma of Mental Illness
Reparations Can Take Many Forms. Let’s Start By Being Honest About What We’ve Wrought
For Latrell Williams
To Heal Our Collective Trauma We Must First Face It
Dreamers Must Not Sleep (The Wages of Wokeness)
Naomi Osaka Prioritized Her Mental Health. It’s Time We Followed Suit
Home is a Place Called Kubota Garden
Afterword
Acknowledgements
Publication History
About the Author
Tentang Penulis
Marcus Harrison Green is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of the South Seattle Emerald. He writes a regular column on South Seattle personalities, social movements, juvenile justice and American society, and he is an op-ed columnist for The Seattle Times. He is a former scholar-in-residence at Town Hall Seattle, a past Reporting Fellow with YES! Magazine, and a recipient of Crosscut’s Courage Award for Culture. He is the editor of Emerald Reflections: A South Seattle Emerald Anthology, Emerald Reflections 2: A South Seattle Emerald Anthology, and Fly to the Assemblies: Seattle and the Rise of the Resistance. He currently resides in Seattle’s Rainier Beach neighborhood.
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