Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good white person of liberal leanings must be in want of a Black friend.
In the biting, hilarious vein of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life comes Ben Philippe’s candid memoir-in-essays, chronicling a lifetime of being the Black friend (see also: foreign kid, boyfriend, coworker, student, teacher, roommate, enemy) in predominantly white spaces.
In an era in which “I have many black friends” is often a medal of Wokeness, Ben hilariously chronicles the experience of being on the receiving end of those fist bumps. He takes us through his immigrant childhood, from wanting nothing more than friends to sit with at lunch, to his awkward teenage years, to college in the age of Obama, and adulthood in the Trump administration—two sides of the same American coin.
Ben takes his role as your new black friend seriously, providing original and borrowed wisdom on stereotypes, slurs, the whole “swimming thing,” how much Beyoncé is too much Beyoncé, Black Girl Magic, the rise of the Karens, affirmative action, the Black Lives Matter movement, and other conversations you might want to have with your new BBFF.
Oscillating between the impulse to be "one of the good ones" and the occasional need to excuse himself to the restrooms, stuff his mouth with toilet paper, and scream, Ben navigates his own Blackness as an "Oreo" with too many opinions for his father’s liking, an encyclopedic knowledge of CW teen dramas, and a mouth he can't always control.
From cheating his way out of swim tests to discovering stray family members in unlikely places, he finds the punchline in the serious while acknowledging the blunt truths of existing as a Black man in today’s world.
Extremely timely, Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Friend is a conversational take on topics both light and heavy, universal and deeply personal, which reveals incisive truths about the need for connection in all of us.
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Ben Philippe. (2021). Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Ben Philippe. 2021. Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes From the Other Side of the Fist Bump. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Ben Philippe, Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes From the Other Side of the Fist Bump. HarperCollins, 2021.
MLA Citation (style guide)Ben Philippe. Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes From the Other Side of the Fist Bump. HarperCollins, 2021.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 3 | 3 |
There is 1 hold on this title.
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Ben Philippe is a New York–based writer and screenwriter, born in Haiti and raised in Montreal, Canada. He has a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University and an MFA in fiction and screenwriting from the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas. He also teaches film studies and screenwriting at Barnard College. He is the author of the William C. Morris Award–winning novel The Field Guide to the North American Teenager. Find him online at www.benphilippe.com.
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It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good white person of liberal leanings must be in want of a Black friend.
In the biting, hilarious vein of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life comes Ben Philippe’s candid memoir-in-essays, chronicling a lifetime of being the Black friend (see also: foreign kid, boyfriend, coworker, student, teacher, roommate, enemy) in predominantly white spaces.
In an era in which “I have many black friends” is often a medal of Wokeness, Ben hilariously chronicles the experience of being on the receiving end of those fist bumps. He takes us through his immigrant childhood, from wanting nothing more than friends to sit with at lunch, to his awkward teenage years, to college in the age of Obama, and adulthood in the Trump administration—two sides of the same American coin.
Ben takes his role as your new black friend seriously, providing original and borrowed wisdom on stereotypes, slurs, the whole “swimming thing,” how much Beyoncé is too much Beyoncé, Black Girl Magic, the rise of the Karens, affirmative action, the Black Lives Matter movement, and other conversations you might want to have with your new BBFF.
Oscillating between the impulse to be "one of the good ones" and the occasional need to excuse himself to the restrooms, stuff his mouth with toilet paper, and scream, Ben navigates his own Blackness as an "Oreo" with too many opinions for his father’s liking, an encyclopedic knowledge of CW teen dramas, and a mouth he can't always control.
From cheating his way out of swim tests to discovering stray family members in unlikely places, he finds the punchline in the serious while acknowledging the blunt truths of existing as a Black man in today’s world.
Extremely timely, Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Friend is a conversational take on topics both light and heavy, universal and deeply personal, which reveals incisive truths about the need for connection in all of us.
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"I still mute Ben's texts, but I inhaled his hilarious book, which is so full of razor-sharp wit and punches to the gut that it almost made me sick. In a good way!" — Samantha Irby, New York Times bestselling author of Wow, No Thank You
"Philippe has created a funny, and at times harrowing, memoir of his experience as a Black man. Fans of similar memoirs, such as Damon Young's What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker, will enjoy the irreverence and recognize themselves in these pages." — Library Journal
"Flat-out funny...This is a great next-book for fans of What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, but if a reader hasn't turned to either of those yet, Philippe's disarming, illuminating, and hilarious chronicle is a great place to start." — Booklist
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April 15, 2021
In a time when conversations surrounding race can feel tense, as though both parties are carefully working through highly sensitive feelings and concerns, writer and screenwriter Philippe has created a tongue-in-cheek, side-eye worthy contribution to documenting what it means to be a Black man in the U.S. This book is flat-out funny, and it is meant to be. Readers should feel free to laugh at all of it, even the sections in which it seems wrong to be amused, because Ben, your "Black friend," has given his permission. In this often-frank memoir-in-essays, Philippe chronicles his experiences growing up, learning, and working as the only Black person in predominantly white spaces. But he also uses his personal encounters to provide wisdom on subjects ranging from racial stereotypes to Beyonc� to the rise of the Karens. This is a great next-book for fans of What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker (2019) and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life (2017), but if a reader hasn't yet turned to either of those, Philippe's disarming, illuminating, and hilarious chronicle is a great place to start.COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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August 1, 2021
Philippe reflects on his role as "the Black friend" (the person white people turn to for insight into Black life), pop culture, and the immigrant experience.
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good white person of liberal leanings must be in want of a Black friend.
In the biting, hilarious vein of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life comes Ben Philippe’s candid memoir-in-essays, chronicling a lifetime of being the Black friend (see also: foreign kid, boyfriend, coworker, student, teacher, roommate, enemy) in predominantly white spaces.
In an era in which “I have many black friends” is often a medal of Wokeness, Ben hilariously chronicles the experience of being on the receiving end of those fist bumps. He takes us through his immigrant childhood, from wanting nothing more than friends to sit with at lunch, to his awkward teenage years, to college in the age of Obama, and adulthood in the Trump administration—two sides of the same American coin.
Ben takes his role as...
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