...About Non-Fiction versus Fiction and the Privilege to Choose

When I first started talking about my understanding of black experience in America, people around me were quick to ask where I was getting these claims of constant daily struggles and reminders of living in a non-white body. My answer was non-fiction books written by non-white people. The first book I read that introduced these realities to me, which I was way too late to the game in reading, was Ta’Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, a book written as a letter to his son about the realities of being Black in America.

“You know, Lil,” a relative called to me as a I turned to walk up the stairs, frustrated that my family wasn’t taking these experiences I was telling them at their face value, “When it comes to non-fiction, you always have to remember there are three sides to every story: there’s your side, there’s the other party’s side, and then there’s the truth.” Not exactly what I wanted to hear. Actually, it was infuriating to hear. How was it any white person’s place to doubt the experience of a black person living in white America, especially when that experience was communicated by a black person?

This soon became a pattern for me: I would talk about a certain chapter that illuminated my complicity in the system, or I’d read a passage from a book that was about the author’s life experience, and I’d be reminded that there were “three truths,” and I needed to take the facts I was learning “with a grain of salt,” It was frustrating. And it was especially frustrating because even if the “three truths” is real, I felt like no one was doing their part to read, learn, or understand any perspective but their own. Sure, every person has their own truth to a story, to an experience, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t listen to other peoples’ truths or experiences. And if you choose to neglect that other perspective, then who are you to doubt or question it when someone tries to communicate it to you? And how can you reconcile those three truths if you only stick to one truth, your truth, your white privileged truth?

“You both like reading. You do it every night before bed. Why don’t you try reading one of these books so you can understand where I’m getting these perspectives from?” I felt like I had failed at effectively communicating what I was learning from my new library, and if they didn’t trust my word or didn’t want to take it, then it was up to them to take the initiative to read them themselves.

“I mean, non-fiction books can be heavy. I like being able to come home and unwind before going to bed by escaping in my murder mystery.” Not the first time I’d heard that response, and I have several issues with it. First: Harlan Coben is not a Pulitzer winning author and I don’t know why you act like he is. Second: whether you recognize it or not, fiction genres often contribute to maintaining race and class hierarchies in America. Third: it is a privilege to choose when you decide to learn about what it’s like being black in America, and it’s a privilege only afforded to white people. White people can come home to their house in the suburbs, where their neighbors house is at least 25 feet from theirs and the loudest noise is a neighbor’s car pulling into a driveway, and escape in the pages of their book. Black people can’t do that; they can’t choose when they decide to learn about what it’s like being black in America, what it’s like to be reminded everyday they do not fit the ideal on which this country was founded, because they live that reality. And if they can choose, they can’t as easily, and it was a lot harder for them to get to a place in life where they had that privilege. Fourth: this fits the same common trend in America that neglects to understand or educate oneself on what it’s like being black in America. This silences the experiences of minorities. And yet, at the same time, white people have the audacity to challenge ideas or stories of what it’s like to be black in a white world? This ultimately just contributes to the detrimental practices and oppressive treatments that dominate in America.