Hey Reader,
Hope you're enjoying Saturday. It's a beautiful day here in Western Arkansas.
Question: What are you afraid to read?
You know the one. It’s sitting on your shelf, staring back at you. Or maybe you walked past it in a bookstore, picked it up for a moment, and then put it down.
Why?
Because books that make us uncomfortable force us to face things we’d rather not feel. They demand we step out of ourselves and into someone else’s story. And that’s terrifying, isn’t it?
She Dared Us to Feel
I’ll never forget Mrs. Bullock, my junior English Lit teacher at Little Rock Central High. She wasn’t just a teacher—she was a force. Her words carried the weight of her will, and she delivered them like challenges, not suggestions.
She didn’t care if her students were ready. She didn’t care if we were comfortable. She wanted us to think, to feel, and to see beyond ourselves.
When she assigned Jubilee by Margaret Walker, she wasn’t just giving us homework. She demanded that we confront something raw and real—for others. Even if we’d never experienced anything like it.
A celebration of Mrs. Bullock’s 100th birthday in 2019.
Before Jubilee, There Was Only Jim
Until that moment, my exposure to Black characters was limited to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Jim was a slave, and Huck’s companion—framed through Twain’s lens as loyal, kind, and simple.
That’s why Percival Everett’s James struck me so deeply in 2024. The story reimagines Jim as a brilliant literary scholar forced to live down to white expectations just to survive. It made me see how much of the story I’d missed—how much I hadn’t even thought to consider.
Central High’s Legacy and My Awakening
Little Rock Central High wasn’t just a school; it was a symbol. In 1957, the Little Rock Nine walked through its doors under the protection of the 101st Airborne. They faced mobs, hatred, and violence to make history.
By 1981, when I attended, the school had a much different vibe. White defiance was gone, replaced by pride in what Central High had become—a racially-diverse symbol of academic and athletic excellence. Instead of preaching hope, Central High exemplified Hope.
But walking into that building didn’t erase what had happened there.
And reading Jubilee in that space, surrounded by classmates who didn’t share my background or perspective, made me feel that history in a way nothing else ever had.
I’ve wrestled with this newsletter. Almost deleted the sections that follow. But I feel Mrs. Bullock’s eyes boring in on me and asking “Do you believe it? Then say it.”
So here we go.
Reading Isn’t Always Easy—And It Shouldn’t Be
Jubilee isn’t just a book. Published in 1966, it’s Margaret Walker’s masterful retelling of her family’s history through Vyry, the biracial daughter of an enslaved woman and a plantation owner. It’s a story of survival, resilience, and brutality.
It doesn’t teach—it makes you feel. It doesn’t give you facts—it gives you humanity. And that’s why it has been a welcome thorn of discomfort in my soul all these years.
Woke Culture and the Pain We Avoid
Woke Culture has gone too far!
Maybe you’ve said it. Maybe you’ve thought it. And maybe you’re offended by it.
The problem with the term—regardless of how you define it or what you think about it—is that become an easy scapegoat.
Dismissing Woke Culture is really just a 2025 way to dismiss conversations that make us uncomfortable. But what are we really avoiding? Whose stories are we refusing to hear, and at what cost to ourselves?
What I’m about to say here? I’ve learned the hard way: Dismissing someone else’s pain doesn’t make it go away. It just makes us blind to it. And that makes life much harder than it needs to be.
Black History Month and the Skeptics
For years, I was a skeptic. I rolled my eyes at Black History Month and thought, “Why do we need it? Isn’t American history enough?”
But rejecting what made me uncomfortable was easier than confronting it. Black History Month isn’t about division. It’s about reading the stories we’ve avoided and seeing what’s been there all along. It’s about challenging yourself—not for productivity or knowledge, but because it makes us more human.
What Will You Let Yourself Feel?
This Black History Month, I'm finally rereading Jubilee. It's a beautiful novel, but parts of it are hard to read. But so much harder to live, and to write about. So, yeah. I'm good with a little discomfort.
I dare you to read a book that makes you uncomfortable. A book that forces you to confront someone else’s story—and your own.
Maybe it’s been sitting on your shelf for months. Maybe it’s one you’ve avoided for years. Or maybe it’s Jubilee.
Pick it up. Let it work on you. Then decide what you think about a buzz word or phrase that makes it easy to dismiss and dehumanize people we don't know anything about, or understand.
Thanks for reading. And thank you, Mrs. Bullock.
Next week, I’ll share a list of books by Black authors that have impacted me or are on my to-read list. But for now, I want to hear from you.
What’s the book that changed how you see the world? I’d like to add it to next week’s list.
—Tracy
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