• I like how Meredith Talusan is praised by her grandmother in the prologue, but I don’t understand why the grandmother refers to herself as, “Not dark and ugly like me,” when comparing herself to her granddaughter.

• I don’t like how Mercy treated Jaquira Díaz as less than because of her physical appearance, especially blaming her and her father for her looks.

• I like that Kiese spoke about issues he wanted to overcome in his passage, specifically about wanting to take back what white people owed the black community, as well as wanting to fight them and not lose to them ever again.

• I hadn’t ever thought about literary lineage before, so its interesting to hear the responses from the three authors about how it related to them.

My reactions are informed by my previewing actives due to the nature of their relationship towards the authors, and their pieces of writing. Such as the library assignment, which instructed me to write about a summary I chose, which relates to a book I decided to choose, and I picked Fairest. I feel like my reaction to Meredith Talusan’s prologue is filled with confusion, followed by questions regarding skin color, and I believe that reading Fairest will give me a better idea of what the author is trying to say. After I read, “La Otra,” “The Cover of my Face,” and “Quick Feet,” I found myself annotating to each text, hoping to discover more about the issues described in each story. These stories definitely gave me a better idea of what to expect from the book I chose, especially since I have no prior knowledge to go off of. Based on what I said so far, I expect this book to be filled with stories, pain, sorrow, dreams, and accomplishments.

I feel like these discussions and previewing readings set me up for more than I bargained for, which is great since I’m hoping to learn more about myself, whilst also understanding someone else’s experiences.

Racial Justice Reads: Kiese Laymon, Jaquira Díaz, Meredith Talusan. Dir. RC. Perf. Kiese Laymon, Jaquira Díaz, Meredith Talusan. Racial Justice Reads: Kiese Laymon, Jaquira Díaz, Meredith Talusan. Race Forward, 17 July 2020. Web. 18 Sept. 2021. <https://youtu.be/D4BQuha4jA4>.