@kawaiipunk @aetataureate
Howdy, Kawaii! I have two possible suggestions and you can choose your own adventure: Notes of a Native Son and Evidence of Things Not Seen.
Notes of a Native Son is a collection of James Baldwin’s earlier essays. He’s as incisive as always, but still a little raw in 1955. I like it because it’s a sampler of short, digestible pieces on diverse topics, including his critiques of Richard Wright and on Black-Jewish tensions.
Evidence of Things Not Seen is a piece of longform journalism. An older Baldwin writes about a string of murders—most of the victims were Black children—in Atlanta between 1979 and 1981. Authorities captured and successfully prosecuted a suspect, but the case aggravated a lot of pre-existing tensions around race, policing, and the criminal legal system.