Prince Shakur – When They Tell You to Be Good

In his essay, “Nothing Personal”, James Baldwin writes: “One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light. It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, to know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is a light. What the light reveals is danger, and what it demands is faith.” What light do we see in ourselves and in each other amid the literal and metaphorical darkness of our time? And what do we need in order to answer Baldwin’s call to be light bearers?

To encounter our light, we often need courage, which my guest today defines as “acts that bring something necessary to the surface.” Prince Shakur is a queer, Jamaican-American author, journalist and videomaker, whose work is steeped in his commitment to Black liberation, prison abolition and queer resilience. His memoir, When They Tell You to Be Good, was released in October and won the Hurston/Wright Crossover Award, which honours probing, provocative and original new voices in literary nonfiction. Connected by our love for James Baldwin, Prince and I explore how our anger can often feel like a reaffirmation of our Blackness, defining and cultivating the courage we need to live according to our beliefs and how his desire to create spaces of transformation for others acts as a transformative force upon himself and what writing his memoir taught him about telling the truth.

The music for this episode was provided by 3CNB.

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About Busy Being Black

Busy Being Black is an exploration and expression of quare liveliness and my guests are those who have learned to live, love and thrive at the intersection of their identities. Your support of the show means the world. Please leave a rating and a review and share these conversations far and wide. As we continue to work towards futures worthy of us all, my hope is that as many of you as possible understand Busy Being Black as a soft, tender and intellectually rigorous place for you to land. 

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