'The Talk' is a graphic memoir about the experiences of Black children and parents

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2023

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

When Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Darrin Bell was six years old, he had an encounter with a police officer. That event, which he kept secret for much of his life, reaffirmed "the talk" he'd just had with his mother about the way white people and systems of power can cast hostility and harm onto Black children. That conversation – the way it shaped his own childhood, schooling and adulthood – is at the heart of Bell's new graphic memoir, The Talk. He spoke with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe about his own approach to discussing race and how it's led him to parent his own child.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone. It's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Timbairmius. The talk often makes headlines
0:08.2	whenever acts of violence, especially police brutality, take place against black people. It refers to the
0:14.6	conversation some black parents have with their children to prepare them to confront racism,
0:19.4	or even racial violence violence and ways to mitigate
0:22.8	those harms. As someone who's received the talk and covered how it's talked about, the focus is
0:28.8	usually on the horrors parents are trying to prevent. But these conversations are also about love
0:35.2	and trying to teach kids how to survive in a world that's sometimes hostile.
0:40.5	That's attention at the heart of the new graphic memoir, The Talk, by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Darren Bell.
0:48.7	In this conversation with NPR's Aisha Roscoe, Bell talks about the very real experiences that drive his story
0:56.0	and how his understanding of the talk and the love that propels it changed with time
1:02.1	and becoming a parent himself. Here's Ayesha Roscoe. On the ThruLine podcast from NPR,
1:09.8	what it takes to report on war.
1:12.7	Great sleep deprivation.
1:15.1	There's no privacy.
1:16.6	You know, how far can I go with this?
1:18.8	When journalists are silenced, the truth is going to be buried with them.
1:24.1	Listen to Thuline in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:31.1	Three years ago, Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist Darren Bell was at work on a biography about his grandfather.
1:38.7	Then came the summer of 2020 and those massive Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality.
1:45.5	Bell had a long talk with his editor about changing the subject of the book entirely and
1:50.8	happened to mention something.
1:52.7	I'm having to grapple with whether my six-year-old son is old enough for the talk.
	...

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