What Doesn't Kill You Makes You BlackerWhat Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker

For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as 'How should I react here, as a professional black person?' and 'Will this white person's potato salad kill me?' are forever relevant. It's a condition that's sometimes stretched to absurd limits, provoking the angst that made him question if he was any good at the "being straight" thing, as if his sexual orientation was something he could practice and get better at, like a crossover dribble move or knitting; creating the farce where, as a teen, he wished for a white person to call him a racial slur just so he could fight him and have a great story about it; and generating the surreality of watching gentrification transform his Pittsburgh neighborhood from predominantly Black to 'Portlandia, but with Pierogies.'