This week’s recommendation comes from:

Tequila Butler

ELA Fellow

Tequila says, “Recently I was reminded of the work that still needs to be done concerning racial equity and social justice. The following article serves as a reminder that the ability to forget the importance of racial equity, the ability to be invisible, and the ability to avoid discussion centered on race when it’s not at the top of the news hour is a gift that not all are afforded.”

Walking While Black

Garnette Cadogan

“I was astonished at how safe the streets felt to me, once again one black body among many, no longer having to anticipate the many ways my presence might instill fear and how to offer some reassuring body language. Passing police cars were once again merely passing police cars. Jamaican police could be pretty brutal, but they didn’t notice me the way American police did. I could be invisible in Jamaica in a way I can’t be invisible in the United States. Walking had returned to me a greater set of possibilities.” – Garnette Cadogan

Garnette Cadogan, contributing editor at Literary Hub, takes readers on his journey of regular, nighttime walks as a child through Jamaica and how different, both physically and emotionally, those experiences were (and still are) from walking along streets in the United States as a black man. Cadogan shares that “Walking—the simple, monotonous act of placing one foot before the other to prevent falling—turns out not to be so simple if you’re black. Walking alone has been anything but monotonous for me; monotony is a luxury.”