Kiese Laymon is a black southern writer, born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon attended Millsaps College and Jackson State University before graduating from Oberlin College. He earned an MFA in Fiction from Indiana University. Laymon is currently the Ottilie Schillig Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi. He served as the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Nonfiction at the University of Iowa in Fall 2017. Laymon is the author of the novel, Long Division and a collection of essays, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and Heavy: An American Memoir.From his Q&A with Poppy Noor for the Guardian:
You were raised by women – your mother and grandma – how was that?--Marshal Zeringue
We hear about absent fathers but not present mothers. A present father wouldn’t have helped me at all, if he was modelling harmful behaviour daily. My grandmother, mother and aunt were pretty good at loving. They tried. They failed often. But their ability to love is why I’m talking to you today. My book is all about love. We can talk about the difference between black and white or Democrats and Republicans but if we don’t learn to love the people we purport to love, we have no chance. Trump says he loves America. Is there any proof of that? No. There’s absolutely no proof that that man loves America.
Would Trump be a better man if he was raised by women?
One of the most useful things that people like Kavanaugh and Trump show us is that having lots of money, a two-parent family and going to the best schools doesn’t necessarily produce the best men.
Your mother wanted to protect you from the things that can happen to black boys – incarceration, gang violence, police violence. But in the end that harms you, too...
White people in the US have been so violent to black folk, and there is a belief that if we present ourselves as perfect, we have a better chance of coming home, of not suffering, of getting more access to healthy choices and second chances. As a kid it struck me that...[read on]