Watch: Decentering white comfort with ‘Black AF History’
TheGrio’s Michael Harriot talks about his new book “Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America.”
Described by some as “the Mayor of Twitter,” theGrio’s Michael Harriot has never been afraid to speak his mind and speak the truth. His new book “Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America” is “a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans.”
Growing up in the South, Harriot was homeschooled until he was 12 and knew from his first Social Studies class in public school that he wasn’t being taught “real history.” In the process of decentering “white comfort,” the acclaimed columnist says learning new things is always uncomfortable. “Algebra is uncomfortable, trigonometry is uncomfortable, I took molecular chemistry in college…that’s uncomfortable, but you must learn new stuff. I don’t think it’s any different with history,” Harriot says.
Harriot points out that when it comes to everything else, it seems as if people are willing to go through discomfort to learn new things, but when it comes to Black people, Black ideas, and Black history, there’s resistance. “The resistance doesn’t come from the un-comfortability of learning new stuff, it’s the Black part that they’re uncomfortable with.”
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