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MY SEVEN BLACK FATHERS by Will  Jawando Kirkus Star

MY SEVEN BLACK FATHERS

A Young Activist's Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole

by Will Jawando

Pub Date: May 3rd, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-374-60487-5
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

A biracial Nigerian American lawyer, community leader, and activist tells his life story through the lens of his most important relationships with other Black men.

Jawando, a council member in Montgomery County, Maryland, grew up in a neighborhood where a number of Black boys he knew were deeply affected by the violence of structural racism. The author believes that the reason he “became a statistic on the positive side of America’s skewed racial balance sheet” is because he had access to a group of Black male mentors who nurtured him when he needed it most. These influential figures included Jawando’s stepfather, who helped him cope with his distant, depressed biological father; his high school gospel choir director, who drove Jawando to college and housed him when he served as an AmeriCorps volunteer; and his mother’s gay Black colleague Jay (“the first openly gay person who I ever met”), who took him to art museums and plays and emphasized the importance of being his whole self. Throughout, the author’s stories and analysis serve as an homage to the importance of providing Black boys with Black male role models. “The multisystem disease [affecting society] is called racism,” he writes. “How you cure it in Black boys is with the presence of present, diverse Black men who are willing to step up and be mentors. To be ‘fathers.’ The rewards flow to us all.” While Jawando begins with the idea that systemic racism can be cured with personal responsibility, in the remainder of the text, he deftly uses his personal story to provide a trenchant structural analysis of how American racism plays out in Black men’s everyday lives. His talent for creating striking imagery and memorable scenes draws readers in to his masterfully constructed world. Jawando treats his past self with compassion without ever skirting responsibility for his mistakes.

A beautifully written and innovatively structured memoir of a biracial Black man’s life journey.