Darrin Bell’s The Talk reaches bookstore shelves on Tuesday June 6 (though it is already on the shelf at my local Barnes and Noble). Darrin sat for an NPR interview today:
NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial Darrin Bell about his graphic memoir, “The Talk.” The title refers to talks about racism Black parents often give their kids.
DARRIN BELL: I’m having to grapple with whether my 6-year-old son is old enough for the talk. I wasn’t planning on giving it to him for a couple years.
RASCOE: The talk as in the talk Black parents give their children about how the world will not be kind to them because of the color of their skin.
BELL: I mean, you look at your children, and you see innocence, and they’re precious, and you – and they still believe in magic, and they still believe that the world loves them. And you don’t want to take any of that from them. But at some point, you have to – if you want to prepare them for what’s to come, if you don’t want someone else to take it from them in a much worse way. And I told her, you know, it was ironic that he’s the same – he was the same age, 6 years old, that I was when my mom gave me the talk. And, you know, she replied with three words. She just said, that’s the book.
