Thread by @thomaschattwill

I’m so thankful my black father who escaped real segregation through the magic of books suggested I read James Baldwin and Earnest Gaines and Shakespeare and Maupassant and Maimonides and Aesop’s fables and never would have thought to segregate the world of literature like this.

https://twitter.com/MadisonPayton2/status/1341766357071892482

*Ernest

There was never “white” literature in my house, or “black” literature, for that matter, there were books that mattered and books you needed to deal with, and there were subjects of interest and subjects of necessity. Mostly there was a sense of books being transcendent.

Also worth noting that the “non-white” work he would tell his students is more “relevant” to them is almost always—if it’s any good—in explicit and subtle conversation with tradition and therefore with many of those same “white” texts he advises them to sparknote. 😬😔