HOW TO SELL OUT

A young Black writer offers a fascinating perspective about race, money, and freedom in America.

If nothing else, this collection of experiential and observational essays about being a Black writer in America demonstrates that for podcaster, television writer, and author Sanders (Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned From Trauma and Triumph), the unexamined life is certainly not worth living. Sanders analyzes his success after the publication of an op-ed about race and friendship in the New York Times following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer and his triumphs and trauma as a well-renumerated employee of a renowned tech firm, a Black writer in the entertainment industry whose mentors include Spike Lee, and the son of successful parents living in a tony suburb of Washington, D.C. It would be unwise to dismiss this book by adopting an attitude that many would love to have the comfortable lives of the rich and famous that Sanders portrays in these pages. But stick with it. The last few essays are the sharpest, especially the piece in which Sanders describes how he altered his attitude and approach as a result of the Writers Guild strike of 2023. The blunt ruminations about his experiences, his internal struggles, and the ironic hierarchies he discovered within Black America itself show Sanders at his best and most insightful. His is a voice that should be heeded by anyone who strives to live up to his father’s injunction to never let anyone take your freedom.

A frank and arresting read.