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Books Beneath the Bridge + Cafe con Libros Presents "This Is Major"

Mon, Oct 05

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Virtual Community Building

A reading and dialogue with author, Shayla Lawson on her recent book, "This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls and Being Dope."

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Books Beneath the Bridge + Cafe con Libros Presents "This Is Major"
Books Beneath the Bridge + Cafe con Libros Presents "This Is Major"

Time & Location

Oct 05, 2020, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM

Virtual Community Building

About the Event

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Link to the Event.

About Shayla Lawson:

Shayla Lawson is the author of three books of poetry—A Speed Education in Human Being, the chapbook Pantone, and I Think I’m Ready to see Frank Ocean—and the essay collection This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope. She was born in Rochester, Minnesota, grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, studied architecture in Italy and spent a few years as a Dutch housewife—milkmaid braids and all. She teaches at Amherst College and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

About the Book: 

Shayla Lawson is major. You don’t know who she is. Yet. But that’s okay. She is on a mission to move black girls like herself from best supporting actress to a starring role in the major narrative. Whether she’s taking on workplace microaggressions or upending racist stereotypes about her home state of Kentucky, she looks for the side of the story that isn’t always told, the places where the voices of black girls haven’t been heard.

The essays in This is Major ask questions like: Why are black women invisible to AI? What is “black girl magic”? Or: Am I one viral tweet away from becoming Twitter famous? And: How much magic does it take to land a Tinder date?

With a unique mix of personal stories, pop culture observations, and insights into politics and history, Lawson sheds light on these questions, as well as the many ways black women and girls have influenced mainstream culture—from their style, to their language, and even their art—and how “major” they really are.

Timely, enlightening, and wickedly sharp, This Is Major places black women at the center—no longer silenced, no longer the minority.

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