Ain't Never Not Been Black

by Javon Johnson

Overview

2021 Midwest Book Award Finalist
2021 In The Margins Book Awards - Nonfiction Recommendation List

Ain't Never Not Been Black foregrounds Black pleasure Black pain and Black love in unflinchingly Black ways.

Engaging with themes of masculinity, racism, love, and joy, Johnson is at once critical and creative. His spoken word performance transfers effortlessly to the page, with poems that will encompass you.

This is a book about blackness and survival, and how in America these are inseparable. In a world of individualism, who can you hold close? In a world of danger, what makes you feel safe?

From a poem written in the form of a syllabus, to another about the time his grandmother literally saved his life, Johnson's creative expression is constantly enacting the feminist mantra, “the personal is political."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781943735846
Publisher:	Button Poetry
Publication date:	10/13/2020
Series:	Button Poetry
Pages:	100
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Javon Johnson is a highly awarded poet, and Professor of African American Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He wrote Killing Poetry: Performing Blackness, Poetry Slams and the Making of Spoken Word Communities (Rutgers University Press). Javon writes for The Huffington Post, The Root, and Our Weekly, and serves on the editorial board for Text & Performance Quarterly. Professor Johnson has appeared on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, BET's Lyric Cafe, TVOnes Verses & Flow, The Arsenio Hall Show, The Steve Harvey Show, and co-wrote a documentary titled Crossover, which aired on Showtime, in collaboration with the NBA and Nike.

Read an Excerpt

And...

my single mother raised
two Black boys in gang ridden,
crack infested 1980's south central,
los angeles. when speaking of us
she often says, “I'm so happy
my boys are still alive,
not in jail. They're doing well.”
she never starts
with my phd from northwestern,
my brother's masters in business from usc.
she knows how easy
our graduations could have been funerals.
all pomp and circumstance. being a Black
mother means playing russian roulette
everytime you send your kids out
the front door for school,
for skittles and tea,
for groceries,
or to just...

Table of Contents

Untitled, Or A Fear of Giving This a Name 1

BLACK 201 2

Near Death 4

Wishing Well 5

America 6

Choke 9

Blackboys/cold 10

And… 11

Cuz he's black 12

On the Murder of Black Children 15

Everyone Had Nicknames Where I Grew Up 17

Black and Happy 18

Black Famous (A Faux Haiku Series) 21

An Open Letter to Tiger Woods 22

Black Famous 2 25

The Last Conversation Between Malcolm X and His Daughter 26

Black Famous 3 30

The Samo 31

Black Famous 4 34

The Cult of Obama 35

Black Famous 5 36

Los Angeles 37

N.W.A 38

On Learning Freedom 39

199Something 40

A Lesson in Proper Sentence Construction 41

Everything I Know about Gentrification I Learned from My Step/Father, Or When the Cancer Comes 44

When the State Decides to Murder 48

On Healthy Masculinity 50

Me 54

An Ode to the S-Curl 56

Enough for Everybody, Or My Grandmother Was My First Philosophy Teacher 58