Never Forget Who You Are

In Never Forget Who You Are: Conversations About Racism and Identity Development, Rodney L. Hurst Sr. and Rudy F. Jamison Jr. offer you two options, and they are both beneficially good. You will read two philosophies and two lived experiences in each chapter about blackness, racism, respect, and pride: one from a 50-year-old mind and eyes and the other from a 75- year-old mind and eyes. Both viewpoints will get you to the same place. 

You can fight the struggle against racism and for human dignity, respect, and identity development and you can travel different paths to get to the same destination and not compromise your journey or your dignity, which is why you are invited to join this reading excursion.

Never Forget Who You Are: Conversations About Racism and Identity Development is a cross-generational conversation between a baby boomer and a Generation Xer that wrestles with what it means to be Black in America. In an attempt to inspire increased attention to sustained racist ideas, Rodney and Rudy present historical contexts, preserved social orders, personal anecdotes, and possible solutions to race relations in America. Because America has created a caste system that categorizes humanity based on power and pigmentation, and refuses to address the severity of racism as an indelible issue, racism and identity development are structural and institutional impediments for Black folk. To be Black in America, and to not camouflage your blackness behind a veil of concession, is to perpetually resist the psychological contortion expected by a dominant White culture. The degree to which Blacks must deny who they are in White spaces may not be an issue for the dominant power structure, but if you’re unapologetically Black, you know the struggle is real.