Black friend Essays

Comedian Ziwe's debut essay collection is testament to her ability to transfer her signature humor to the page. Readers familiar with Ziwe's late-night talk show and social media presence will recognize her bold, unflinching voice and perspective on topics like race, gender, and pop culture. She is funny because of her comedic timing and witty wordplay, but also because she dares to say anything and everything. Some of her stories feel almost too absurd to be true, like the case of mistaken identity on a jumbotron in "nobody knows my name" or her experience with an inane instance of codeswitching in "damn." But, by carefully balancing hilarity with earnest revelations about Blackness and the burden of racism, she makes you trust her, so you know it is all true. The last two essays, "affirmative actions" and "my body of work," round out this diverse collection with an optimistic nod to her personal achievements and ambitions. Black Friend gives insight into Ziwe as a comedian, a writer, and as the main character in her own life.

The comedian and former host of the satirical Showtime talk show Ziwe debuts with a forthright collection of personal essays on identity and race. "Discomfort" offers insight into Ziwe's idiosyncratic brand of humor, revealing that she felt able to ask uncomfortable questions to guests on her show because "I have felt uncomfortable my entire life" as the daughter of Nigerian immigrant parents growing up in New England (she recounts feeling like an outsider as a child for missing sleepovers because her parents "didn't trust other people"). In "How Many Black Friends Do You Have?" Ziwe muses that white guests on her Showtime and Instagram Live programs often answered with "four or five" because more than 10 feels transparently "arbitrary," six to 10 comes across as "commodif the brown people in your life," and fewer than three makes one appear "part of the problem." Other entries discuss Ziwe's encounter with a "Karen" while roaming the woods near her upstate New York Airbnb and feeling compelled to go by a mononym professionally because white people struggled to get her full name right. The intimate selections offer a rare look beneath Ziwe's comedic persona, and the humor amuses (she calls group projects "a byproduct of the stupid rights lobby to hold advanced students who did the homework back from reaching their true potential"). Ziwe's fans will appreciate the energetic mix of comedy and personal reflection. (Oct.)

An essay collection that reveals personal and theoretical underpinnings of a Black woman's innovative approach to anti-racist entertainment. "I do not exist just to move plot. While I am a supportive friend, I am not a supporting character." So begins Ziwe in her wide-ranging collection that centers her experiences as a Black, immigrant woman. The author covers everything from the struggles of others to pronounce her name, to the irony of facing racism at a screening of a movie adaptation of James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk, to her decision to acquire a guard dog to protect her from racist street harassment. The latter project failed miserably because Ziwe ended up adopting a Chow Chow "too cute to intimidate strangers." As she does on her show, Ziwe uses jokes as vehicles for her staggeringly insightful cultural analysis, fueled by her unparalleled knowledge of history, literature, criticism, and popular culture. For example, in an essay about her guests' answer to the question "How many Black friends do you have?" she includes a footnote in which she describes her show as "a modern deconstruction of the American interview that has devolved from thoughtful discourse about societal issues (Dick Cavett talking to James Baldwin, Muhammad Ali, etc.) to inconsequential conversations about celebrities promoting their movies in between anecdotes of their movies." The author then unravels the patronizing, racist, and misogynistic questions that people ask her about her show: "You would never ask this question to Howard Stern, Zach Galifianakis, Andy Cohen, and The Colbert Report's Stephen Colbert, the latter of whom my character is based off of, despite the confrontational questions that they've asked their guests for decades." Ziwe fans will revel in the behind-the-scenes details, while those unfamiliar with the author or her show will delight in their personal discovery of one of the smartest, funniest voices in modern America. A satirical feminist and anti-racist essay collection showcasing a formidably talented comedian and cultural critic. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.