I had to read this slowly, thoughtfully, with many pauses and breaks.
There have been books I’ve read through in one sitting, sometimes because they are so fast paced that they demand my continued attention until I am done. Sometimes it’s over a few days.
But this book . . . this book was something I’d pick up, read some pages, and then become so full of feelings that I had to put it down. To think a little. Process what was going on. Try to understand what was happening as the part of me I recognize as “me” was encountering this most remarkable book.
Danté has written a book that invites us to come sit with him by the fire, perhaps rocking in our chairs, perhaps just comfortable in a La-Z-Boy, because we’re just going to share for a while. He has some stories to tell. We’re gonna laugh a little, cry a little, feel a little more burdened by the cares of our lives and then feel a little more like we know each other better when we’re done.
This is a book of essays and thoughts that Danté’s written to explore how his life has been up to this point, how he as a Black man struggled to become acceptable & therefore un-Black to the white Christian world, how that led to an absolute crisis that then led to a rediscovery of his self and his identity as a Black man. Within the essays is woven his re-awakening to the work of Black authors, Black teachers, Black influencers, Black people who have always been there to embrace him and bring him home. And as the poet says, home is where, when you have to go there, they have to let you in. Only in this case—they were always waiting, always ready, always looking.
I wish that it were different and not so hard to be pushed away from love in America, but so many people are pushed away by those who think that America is only them. And I suppose it would be hard to change that—for the past five hundred years, this is just how America has been, and we’re pretty happy with it as a place that favors wyte people.
Sometimes we want a happy ending. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a happy ending to this book? To this life? To being Black in America?
I don’t know. Maybe there are no happy endings. Maybe racism in America is not only intractable but the very meaning of America itself. Still, I would hope, for the sake of our own human redemption, that we’d try to make it better than it has been. Maybe then the fire can burn for warmth and not for scars.
Shoutin’ in the Fire, on Amazon