Uncensored: My Life and Uncomfortable Conversations at the Intersection of Black and White America - Hardcover

Wood, Zachary R.

 
9781524742447: Uncensored: My Life and Uncomfortable Conversations at the Intersection of Black and White America
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1524742449 ISBN 13: 9781524742447
Verlag: Dutton, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Drawing upon his own powerful personal story, Zachary Wood shares his perspective on free speech, race, and dissenting opinions--in a world that sorely needs to learn to listen.

As the former president of the student group Uncomfortable Learning at his alma mater, Williams College, Zachary Wood knows from experience about intellectual controversy. At school and beyond, there's no one Zach refuses to engage with simply because he disagrees with their beliefs--sometimes vehemently so--and this view has given him a unique platform in the media.

But Zach has never shared the details of his own personal story. In Uncensored, he reveals for the first time how he grew up poor and black in Washington, DC, where the only way to survive was resisting the urge to write people off because of their backgrounds and perspectives. By sharing his troubled upbringing--from a difficult early childhood to the struggles of code-switching between his home and his elite private school--Zach makes a compelling argument for a new way of interacting with others and presents a new outlook on society's most difficult conversations.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Zachary R. Wood is an Assistant Curator at TED, as well as a former Columnist and Assistant Opinion Editor at The Guardian, a former Robert L. Bartley Fellow at The Wall Street Journal, and a class of 2018 graduate of Williams College. His recent work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, HuffPost, The Nation, The Weekly Standard, Times Higher Education, and Inside Higher Ed. A Washington, DC, native, Wood currently resides in New York City.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

Crossroads

My mother was the first person I desperately tried to understand. She was five feet seven with mahogany skin and a beautiful smile. She was born in Fort Worth, Texas, but spent most of her childhood in Detroit. She was a people person, with excellent soft skills, and she rarely made anything less than a great first impression when she wanted to.

But I could never take her words at face value. When I was about four years old she sat me down and told me in graphic detail what my father had done that forced her to leave him. She sat, unblinking, her face mere inches from mine. "Your father," she said slowly through clenched teeth, drawing each word out as she gestured with the lit cigarette that dangled from between her fingers, "took me by my shoulders and threw me down on the ground. He pinned me there, Zachary," she continued, "calling me a fucking bitch and holding me down with all his strength until I could hardly breathe."

I was terrified. I didn't want to hear any more, but even at the age of four I knew better than to interrupt my mother when she was speaking. "Then he picked me up," she said, her brow knit and eyes focused, "and threw me against the wall. It hurt to walk, but I ran into your room to get you so that we could leave. But your father blocked the doorway and refused to let us out."

I was later told that when my father left for work the next morning, my mother borrowed money from a friend to rent an apartment, and the two of us moved out of our house in Forestville, Maryland. For weeks, my dad had no idea where my mom and I were. During that time, she filled my head with lies about my father, repeating this violent, graphic story over and over with her voice and eyes full of fear and anger.

I had nightmares about my father knocking my mom over, slapping her, and throwing her to the ground. But had he done those things? My young mind was confused. The details of his beatings were there in my memory, but they didn't feel the same as other memories that I knew to be true. I couldn't tell what was real.

Finally, my mom's mom, whom I called Lola, convinced my mother to let me see my father again. I was so happy to be back home at his house, but I was also confused. All weekend, I wouldn't stop asking my father questions about what had happened between him and my mom. "Daddy, did you hurt Mommy? Did you hit her?"

"No," he said with a sigh. "That's not how I remember it." He never said she was lying. But I sensed from spending time with my father that her stories were biased. I loved being with my dad. He was at work a lot, but when he got home he'd throw some meat and vegetables into the oven and take me to the park to play. My dad has always been a gym rat. He's in great shape to this day, and when I was a kid he had at least as much energy as I did. And I always had a lot of energy.

This was how my dad showed his affection-by doing rather than saying. He was emotionally reserved but engaged, a man of few words. He rarely told me that he loved me, but he showed me clearly that he did by always being there, ready to play with me and make his best efforts at answering my endless questions. No matter how exhausted or frustrated he was, he never raised his voice. His house, which I still thought of as home, was a place of peace.

It was in direct contrast to life with my mom, and I missed my dad terribly when he wasn't around. A few months after we'd moved out of my dad's house, we were going through a drive-through when I told my mom, "I want to be with my dad."

Now, this memory is crystal clear. My mom took the bag of food and sped off, abruptly stopping the car a few yards away. She reached over to the passenger seat, grabbed me, and forcefully placed me in her lap. She put her hands on my shoulders and began shaking me aggressively.

"No, Zachary," she said over and over as she shook me. "No, no, no, no, no." I felt dizzy. "Tell me you love me." She kept on shaking me. My head was spinning. "Tell me that you want to live with me." I just cried. I was so scared. I had never seen her that angry. "Tell me, Zachary."

"Yes," I finally said in a small voice, and she abruptly stopped. I was still crying, and my head hurt, but she placed me back in my seat and drove off as if nothing had happened. I didn't say a word for the rest of the day.

When I think about these early memories, I try to reconcile them with the many times my mom said, "If you fail at raising your children, nothing else in life really matters." It was a paraphrase of her favorite quotation from Jacqueline Kennedy, whom she admired for her elegance and sophistication. When I think about the fear and pain I felt as a child, I try to remember the amazing birthday parties my mother threw for me and the times she sat me down one-on-one and said, "Zachary, I love you more than you will ever know. Honey, I love you more than life itself."

Even when I resented her for how she made me feel, I loved my mother dearly, just as I do now. As I look back, it's easier to see how as a little kid my mind was overwhelmed by the expectation of her rage. Though I never doubted that she loved me, the abuse I endured often made it difficult for me to feel her love.

Different people yell at varying levels of intensity-a raised voice, a shout, a quick holler. When my mother yelled, it was as if all her rage were being unleashed-and she had a lot of rage. She yelled with high intensity for as long as she could. Many times, she'd scream at me until her voice became hoarse. Then she'd take a break and start yelling again when her voice returned.

While she was yelling, I had to stand up straight and still and maintain eye contact with her the entire time. If I slouched or dropped my gaze, it would make things worse. Sometimes she'd yell while sitting back in her chair, smoking a cigarette. But most of the time, she would stand uncomfortably close to me, staring me right in the eyes. If I wasn't focusing enough on what she was saying, she'd point her finger right up to my eye, so close that it was almost touching. "Don't blink," she said sternly. "Don't you fucking blink."

I always looked forward to visits with my dad, but they were never frequent enough for me. The second-best thing was trips to see my grandma Lola and her husband, whom I called Papa, in Detroit. They were both retired, so they spent all their time with me when I visited. Lola had been an elementary school teacher for more than twenty years in the Detroit public school system, and Papa was a child psychologist.

Shortly after my third birthday, I went to stay with Lola and Papa for four weeks, and Lola taught me to read. I loved it, sitting there on her lap, watching her trace each word on the page with three fingers as she read to me.

Lola showered me with gifts and special treats. She promised that if I worked with her on my reading every morning, she would take me to Crossroads. Crossroads was short for Great Lakes Crossing Outlets mall. As a little kid, I thought it was absolutely the coolest place in the world. It was so big and was filled with a dizzying number of colors, contraptions, and curiosities. The mall had a Rainforest Cafe, with a life-size mechanical alligator that rose up out of the water and snapped its jaws when I walked up close...

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Verlag
Dutton
Erscheinungsdatum
2018
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1524742449
ISBN 13 
9781524742447
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
272
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Edel Music & Entertainment GmbH
https://www.edel.com

Neum�hlen 17
Hamburg
Hamburg
Deutschland

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