Episode originally aired on Nov. 2, 2021.
“Don’t make it out, make it better.”
That’s a line from podcast guest D. Watkins, offered in the book trailer for his book of essays We Speak for Ourselves: A Word from Forgotten Black America, in which he gives voice to the voiceless and shines meaningful light on what it means to come of age in East Baltimore, in one of America’s poorest black neighborhoods.
It’s a line you might hear as well from D.’s NBA legend Carmelo Anthony, himself a product of an uncertain, unforgiving environment–the housing projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn, and Baltimore.
In the future Hall-of-Famer’s just-published memoir, Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised: A Memoir of Survival and Hope, an immediate New York Times best-seller, D. helps his celebrated co-author share his story of finding a way out of no way at all, sounding the call for social justice and offering a guidepost for readers looking to pull success from struggle.
More than any other athlete’s memoir in recent memory, the book offers a perfect pairing of author and subject, as D. brings his own perspective to Anthony’s hard-won experience.
An editor-at-large for Salon, D.’s work has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, and Rolling Stone, among other publications. He is the author of the New York Times best-sellers The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir and The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America.
Connect with D. Watkins:
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