Breathe: A Letter to My Sons

by Imani Perry

2020 Chautauqua Prize Finalist2020 NAACP Image Award Nominee - Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction)Best-of Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 (Kirkus Reviews) · 25 Can't-Miss Books of 2019 (The Undefeated) Explores the terror, grace, and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in contemporary America and what it means to parent our children in a persistently unjust world. Emotionally raw and deeply reflective, Imani Perry issues an unflinching challenge to society to see Black children as deserving of humanity. She admits fear and frustration for her African American sons in a society that is increasingly racist and at times seems irredeemable. However, as a mother, feminist, writer, and intellectual, Perry offers an unfettered expression of love—finding beauty and possibility in life—and she exhorts her children and their peers to find the courage to chart their own paths and find steady footing and inspiration in Black tradition.Perry draws upon the ideas of figures such as James Baldwin, W. E. B. DuBois, Emily Dickinson, Toni Morrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Ida B. Wells. She shares vulnerabilities and insight from her own life and from encounters in places as varied as the West Side of Chicago; Birmingham, Alabama; and New England prep schools.With original art for the cover by Ekua Holmes, Breathe offers a broader meditation on race, gender, and the meaning of a life well lived and is also an unforgettable lesson in Black resistance and resilience.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Race, Social Justice, Anti Racist, Audiobook, Essays

181 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 17, 2019

About the author

Imani Perry, a professor of African American studies at Princeton, first appeared in print at age 3 in the Birmingham (Alabama) News in a photo of her and her parents at a protest against police brutality. She has published widely on topics ranging from racial inequality to hip-hop and is active across various media. She earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a bachelor's degree from Yale University.

(from http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/ar...)

Reviews

[Traci Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book. It is the mother’s companion to BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME. It is thoughtful and poetic and Perry drops so many gems. There is lots to think about in this book and could easily require multiple rereads to really understand all that Perry has done with this book.

[Andre(Read-A-Lot) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully rendered both in prose and wisdom.

I found many parallels here to my own thinking. I can easily relate being a parent. Imani Perry uses delicate cultured prose to write to her two sons, and in the process manages to give them family history, her hopes, desires, dreams and even her fears as they navigate this thing called life. What ends up between the pages is a beautiful document of stressing their worth and how to hold onto that and always see themselves, even when others may refuse not too.

Although this is a slim volume, the punch and impact are huge and wide enough to encompass and inspire all readers. You don’t have to be a parent to understand the notability of what Ms. Perry is expressing here. She is showing vulnerability and managing to keep honesty as a constant and consistent presence on the page. She knows the power of America to devour Black children and specifically Black boys of which she has two.

“…..you are Black in America, which means rage is your familiar, even if you haven’t called it that yet. What I mean is, by virtue of where you live and go to school, and the possibility and comfort that are so often in your reach, you are not up close to the full weight of what Black life in America often is.”

I found myself just highlighting an abundance of her sentences, as I’m certain most readers will do the same. The quality of this book is worthy of a warm embrace and space on your bookshelf. It is a book you will return to often, in search of eloquent ways to phrase a sentence or to express an idea you are having trouble putting in writing.

“And yet, you cannot rely on certain expectations as Black people. You cannot say to yourself: If I do A, B, and C, then D will happen. It just doesn’t work that way. What you put in may not have its just reward. But maybe it will. So, you have to have an inside thermometer, or better yet a barometer, of who you want to be and how well you are doing. Am I running hot or cold? Or am I in my pocket? In my bag? In my feelings? You already have it; it is the headstrong thing that sometimes puts people off. It is your necessary armor.”

The rearing of children is no easy task, and when you have to deliver the harsh truths, it is that much more difficult. I share her conclusion for what is included in a good life, “Some leisure. Nourishment, adequate rest. A sense of purpose, which is a wildly variant thing, thank God. I want you to understand that is more than enough. It is everything. And yet, and of course this is easier for me to teach, I also want you to keep your vast imaginations, be wanderlustful for life. Passion is my preferred disposition, under a placid surface. Be hungry.” Indeed, be hungry for great books, and this one will satiate your appetite.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the title states, Breath is a letter to the author's young sons. It is a celebration of their beauty, their gifts, and the love of their mother for them as well as the bonds of the family, including and importantly extended family as well. It is also the outcry of a mother who knows her children are facing a world hostile to them as men of color and a call to them to retain their integrity, their creativity, and their joy of living and loving despite the dangers that surround them.

Perry, who also wrote an outstanding biography of Lorraine Hansberry (Looking for Lorraine), is a powerful writer. There were times her book made me want to cry both from the passion of her love and pain at some of the twisted values of our country, the needless hatred and violence we see daily. Perry is eloquent about these dangers but never forgets to celebrate her sons' love for live, unique qualities, and the lives they are creating.

Perry converys her hopes and dreams for the men they will become. Although worldly success is nice (and Perry, as well as her family, has an impressive C.V.--Harvard degrees, a professorship at Yale, a number of published books), she is most concerned with who they are as humans and what they value. For her, love of family, honoring others, human relationships are the heart of what it means to be successful in life.

In addition to her stories about her sons, her descriptions of them and their lives, Perry also provides a background to their lives. She believes that we neither come into the world alone nor do we live as isolated units. Family is important, place is important. Perry has deep roots to the south as well as to the midwest. She shares stories of her own life, obstacles she has faced, joys she has experienced. She celebrates the lives of her parents, grandparents and other ancestors and includes close friends, mentors, and even those we have admired and learned from as part of that important family. We do not go through this life alone, nor should we.

The author also tells her sons of where she feels she has not been the mother she would like to be and the ways in which they can thrive despite that. She appreciates the ways in which they are different from her as much as in the things they share. She admires their individual talents and ideas and ways of being in the world.

As a part of her gift to her sons, Perry shares much autobiographical information that I found fascinating. Her prose is beautiful and often inspiring. I found myself constantly underlining passages. She is an original and brilliant thinker who cares deeply about how to live in this world and how to share our thoughts, feelings, and experiences with each other. Like her, I deeply value and love books. Perry's love of reading reinforces her love of life and opens her always to new paths.

The book gives great pleasure because of the vibrancy of Perry's love for her sons, as well as her passion for life, for experience, for people, books, learning--everything it seems. Perry is full of energy and enthusiasm, which seem to support her as she makes a life within a difficult culture in difficult times.

This is a book I would like to reread. I felt my spirit uplifted by this letter. Perry is an inspiration not only to mothers but to all people who want to live a meaningful life. This book is a gift to us as well as her sons and a joy to read.

I received a copy of this book from LibraryThing.com. My thoughts and opinions are my own. I am grateful to the author and publisher as well as LibraryThing for the opportunity to read this.

[Joshunda Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gorgeous book is a prayer or a mantra. It is the second book of Dr.Perry’s that I have inhaled this year, and its maternal, ethereal poetry is a balm for these times. It is authentic testimony on behalf of herself and her ancestors and ourselves and our ancestors of what it looks like to hold babies with tenderness in a world that believes that Black children are never new or babies or deserving of tenderness and care. What I do appreciate about Breathe is its tenderness, truly a reflection of Dr.Perry’s care for her children but also for the inner children of Black people who have maybe never had so skilled a storyteller and scholar peer into their beautiful brown eyes and tell them they are not only seen and loved but valuable and valued.

[Kimberley · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, you will appreciate the perspective of Imani Perry in Breathe: A Letter to My Sons.

Where Coates was contemplative in describing the effects of having grown up in a system designed for his failure and prosecution--on the way he approaches the fathering of his son--Perry is urgent in conveying that, though the world was not built to accommodate her son's Blackness, their Blackness is no less beautiful...even if the world wants to convey otherwise.

There are fingers itching to have a reason to cage or even slaughter you. My God, what hate for beauty this world breeds. They say they are afraid. I do not believe it is fear. It is bloodlust

I am a mother. I have a daughter and a son. Both are Black and far too close--for my own comfort--to becoming independent parts of this stilted world; my faith in humanity is tested every time I turn on the news, listen to the radio, or simply scroll my Instagram feed so I understand the place of fear and resignation Perry speaks.

It's frustrating to bear witness to the plethora of ways Blackness is devalued but see people attempt to invalidate those injustices. Instead of asking the right questions, they choose to assign blame to the victim and ask how you could've stopped *insert injustice here* from happening.

As if the power to do so has ever belonged to you.

As an adult, you're able to see the inequities, and have the ability to articulate them to others but you know that won't matter.

The hopelessness, anger, and overall impotence that causes is heartrending and, when you add the fact of your own children soon being forced to traverse those same channels...well...it hits different.

No matter how "just so" I have tried, and often failed, to make things, I have known from the very first day of each of your lives that I cannot guarantee your safety. That is what the voyeurs want to drink in. That is why they make me so mad...Because the truth is it is frightening.

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Despite the despair and fear, though, it's clear Perry has a sliver of hope that her sons will find their way. And while she wants them to be aware of how their Blackness will color, confuse, and complicate their place within the world, she doesn't want them to be so defined by the world's ignorance they fail to become who they're capable of being.

The routes have always been rough. West Africa to Barbados to South Carolina. Maryland to Alabama. To Chicago from Mississippi. By boat, by train, by foot, each time an unsteady cruelty. You, revenant, must learn to possess an impeccable balance. Claim your earth as you see fit and ride above it

Imani Perry has offered the world a proclamation--in the form of this "letter"--and I suspect her sons are not the only children for whom her words will be of value.

I enjoyed this thoroughly and recommend it highly.

*Thank you to Edelweiss+ for this Advanced eGalley. Opinion is my own and was not influenced.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. One of the best books I've ever read. There is so much in these pages. I think one of my biggest takeaways was the beautiful way that she talked about how "that could have been my child" is not the right response when looking at death of Black boys (all Black ppl, but Black boys especially bc she's writing to her sons), because it was not. Because it is enough to mourn that it happened to one child and what makes us mourn is not that it could have been our child but that it happened at all. I'm still processing this book. It was remarkable and I hope it becomes cannon.

[Abbie | ab_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked it up Breathe for @thestackspod Book Club and I'm so glad I did as it is a beautiful and poignant book on raising Black sons in America. It’s so intensely personal and Imani Perry’s writing is just stunning. She is rightfully adamant about her sons claiming their joy and beauty in a country which is stacked against them. Even people who aren't parents will be moved by the tenderness with which Perry recollects precious memories from her sons' births and lives.
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She opens up a window into the deeply personal inner lives of herself and her family, and I appreciated her after-word where she relayed her feelings when she was asked to write this book. There's always a risk that people will judge your parenting or that your kids will resent you for writing so personally about them later in life. But ultimately Perry felt compelled to write it.
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It truly is a heartfelt book, but I would recommend getting a physical copy if you can. Imani Perry narrates it herself, and she does so beautifully, but the actual production was a bit off. A lot of the time you can hear people coughing in the background or moving around, opening doors etc. This was a bit distracting, and a lot unnerving when I was listening to it on my own at home and someone coughed seemingly behind me!

[Madi Nichol · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Some [love] we give to our young; some they fashion from their own living. And they teach us in the process. They are doing so. Because every second-person sentence devoted to them in these pages is to all of us. It is received wisdom from their witness and passionate hope for their futures. We, you, they, do not have to fight a whole society over its terms to find another way of living as long as you love the right ones, freshly, and in the immediacy of your connection. And when you do fight, and I know you will, do not fear the humiliation of the defeat. Defeat is not humiliating. Rather, passivity to evil is self-immolation.”

“I know you are tired of old terrible people looking for you to save them, but the truth is we need you. We have made a disaster of things. We have failed our possibilities.”

This was equal parts beautiful and painful to read. Perry writes a letter to her two sons about what it has meant to her and what it will mean to them as they grow up as Black men in America.

[Neko~chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The prose in this was superb and illuminating — the way the sentences were constructed, definitely made me see certain things in differently — but in some parts I felt like the book was drowning in it. It also circles back to the same ideas and themes. I think this is just a personal bias toward the kinds of essays I like to read, but I felt this book meanders a bit too much, and it’s a bit too internal for me to fully grasp. Obviously I don’t come from the same cultural context as Imani Perry, which will be a key aspect of it. So the rating is in part how much personal enjoyment I got out of the book. I really admire her command of language, though.

[Sarah Koppelkam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow wow wow, this was stunning and smart. Yes, the comparisons to Ta-Nehisi Coates will definitely come, and in many ways this does serve as a companion of sorts. But while Coates grapples with the pain and the history that he knows his son will have to face, Perry also insists on joy and fullness for her sons. She insists on humanity. She is a beautiful storyteller and weaver of texts. This is a book that should be in the hands of any white educator who works with black male students - we need to reminded frequently and firmly of all the things Perry is saying.

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

While reading this I found it interesting and beautifully written, but I have to admit that almost before I finished I found myself struggling to remember what I had read 30 or 40 pages before. It was hard to stay focused ad find a through idea while reading, and after reading I simply don't remember it in a meaningful way. I would absolutely not discourage anyone from reading it, but this book wasn't sticky enough for me to recommend.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who would think of knocking a book that is cover-to-cover encouragement?, esp. one as insightful, caring and open-hearted as this?

Author and Princeton University professor Imani Perry wrote this 'letter' at the suggestion of her editor. She explains: 

I had a habit of talking about my sons on social media. I have also written them letters since they were infants. ... I could have also written one to the kind of children I don't have: girls. ... Maybe with more words about not letting yourself be eaten up by love. Or maybe a child who rejects categories wholly? I could have written to them instead, and in truth the lessons would be virtually the same.

Looked at (or felt) another way, Perry could easily be writing to anyone with a heart to listen. Even though she is at times specifically instructing her two boys on wise ways to face the world as they grow up Black, she is also imparting learned lessons re: how *anyone* can best 'combat' a too-often hostile world.

As the book began, I wasn't completely sure what direction Perry was going in. It was as though she were skimming stones on the surface of what she wanted to say. ~ as the stream turned into more of a river. 

Gems emerged:

What would the complete dissembling of the kingdom of identity look like? How would the viscera pulse under a cracked open surface? Would we all shatter? Could we put something together again? I don't know. I am losing some of my ability to dream a world.

Auntie Simone once asked me, "What are your politics?" That was many years ago. I answered, "Poor people." It was an awkward answer. But that is at the center. I think poverty is the product of an evil way of being, of hoarding and depriving. And it is part of a web. The history of conquest is a scourge of the human condition.

I live for the life of the mind and heart. ... The fact is that I don't want to fit in at all. I want to continue in the strangeness that allows me to discover myself and others.

As well, the book contains interesting little known facts:

George Washington's false teeth were not wood, as you may have heard. They were actually made from a variety of materials, including Black humans' teeth. The father of our country stole our teeth. Our bite. Think about that.

Periodically, Perry reminds us that she is presenting herself flaws and all. When she talks about certain 'scuffles' with her sons or normal parent/child disconnects, she is also quick to assert that the bond is quantifiably in place. 

I'm not completely sure of Perry's spiritual conclusions - though she seems to lean toward a holistic approach to 'The Infinite'... something I rather like. Coming from a Quaker background, Perry describes that sect's weekly worship meetings as:

mostly silent except for when the spirit moves. It is a faith ritual that is typically untethered from doctrine beyond a belief that God is in everyone and in the virtue of peace.

Perry doesn't explain much about the Quakers beyond that. I'm not a churchgoer. But I like the idea of a group gathered together in silence, with the idea of being quiet for a set period of time; to let the Spirit move and to replenish without the need of words. I could almost be convinced to attend that kind of 'church'. 

[Amanda Bernal]

A poetic, intimate, honest, reflective and powerful book extending beyond the framework of a letter from a mother to her sons. Every single page is rooted in love. I’ll certainly return to this book again.

[Candice Hale · Rating 5 out of 5]

The privileged ones take breaths for granted. Eric Garner’s last few breaths remained splattered on the New York streets hung up in a corrupt chokehold. The privileged ones have space and room to breathe freely. However, George Floyd’s racially profiled arrest depicts a man pinned down like a wild boar, with a knee lodged on his neck, by three police officer unable to breathe freely for nearly 9 minutes. These are only two cases of police brutality in U.S. history that may cause a shock to your system—but the “past is not past” because Black men have always been targets of white supremacy.

In Imani Perry’s 𝘽𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚: 𝘼 𝙇𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙈𝙮 𝙎𝙤𝙣𝙨, she extends readers a tender and moving meditation on race, a lesson on our proud and painful history, and the joys of parenting. To understand the science of breathing—babies don’t breathe their own oxygen when they’re in the womb. Instead, they receive it from their mother to come into existence and then your child takes their first breath usually within the first ten seconds of life. Like most mammals, babies, too are naturally primed for survival. Yet, Black boys must continue to fight to breathe to live. Perry states, “When the world is bent on you not becoming, being and becoming is an uphill battle that can become Sisyphean. You just keep rolling down that hill. Not because we cannot love ourselves or find ourselves. We can. It is that every step towards that becoming get classified.”

Parenting isn’t easy for anyone, but it’s even harder for parents of Black children in this America. There is an inherent fear for Black mothers of Black sons. Simultaneously, in this short, but powerful narrative, we get a devoted mother who expresses her immense love and hopes her two sons—Freeman and Issa—can experience joy in this world. Perry demands of them: “Breathing life back into the past, pulling from the ranks of your history, is how you build yourself. You are born to something and someplace; you become of a living accord in road. This is how we move forward. Letting the constraints of the moment die a little bit, to breathe life into the process of becoming.” We all must breathe life into our own unique story.

[Susanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book in order to participate in a church-wide reading effort, and I wanted to like it. Truly, I did. But it was still a slog. I confess to being a practical, down-to-earth sort of person. I'm not particularly proud of that; I confess as well that most poetry and virtually all descriptive tags alongside pieces of modern art in museums leave me scratching my head in confusion . . . and significant parts of this book felt exactly like that to me.

Some parts rang very true: I am a mother, and a reader. I get the anxieties all mothers share, trying to keep their children safe in a challenging world. I get that raising Black children in American may be exponentially harder. I loved her description of reading which is "not just an avocation or a habit for me. . . it is trying to understand the world around us, with a belief that it is possible to make it sweeter and better."

But I found myself halted by whole paragraphs of wordy text that meant . . . what? No idea at all. "Proselytize this: calling all Black people from the ocean floor, the grand earth, the digested fecal matter turned over to murderous guards, the tended graves, the unmarked, the unnamed, the stolen, the thieves. You need a practice of reconstitution, of filling up your font. Of cleansing the stench of humiliation, to face it another day without being defeated." (p. 126)

"In a life of authorship and interpretation, analysis and architecture and deconstruction, love is my cipher of choice. One that I have decided is better to have than the social contract or law sitting at your core, because you have entered it rather than simply being bound. It has its own improvisation and contingent rules and ethics. Some we give to our young; some they fashion from their own living. And they teach us in the process. They are doing so. Because every second-person sentence devoted to them in these pages is to all of us." (p. 157)

I see that the author is a highly regarded academic. Her "letter" may have been intended as more poetry than instruction. I wish I were a better audience for her efforts. Mea culpa.

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I think I am orchestrating your futures as I parent. But the trust is, you teach me who you are much better than I teach you who I think you should be. You have insisted I listen as an act of care. Even when I want to preach and profess. You insist I live by my word to care. Listening is care. You insist to me reminders that you are the engineers of your own lives. Not Me. I am just to feed and nourishments hyou, to make space for you to feed yourself."⁠⠀
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Breathe: a Letter to My Sons by Imani Perry explores the terror, grace, and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in contemporary America and what it means to parent our children in a persistently unjust world. This book was really moving to me, and it is deeply reflective as Imani admits fear and frustration for her sons in a society that is increasingly racist.⁠⠀
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It also offers this meditation on race, gender, family (and ancestors), parenting and I found that it is also full of lessons on parenting. Although, I am not the mothers of sons, yet I still found it so valuable. Imani is a talented writer. Highly recommend this one.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCtl0DXAK...

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perry writes that she was approached to write this book, and my guess is that the publishers were looking for a "mom" version of Coates' Between the World in Me. And Perry certainly covers some of the same themes, though there is a larger positivity to this book. Coates' book was like a punch to the gut, and with that, it impacted me more. But I do think that this one deserves a second - and slower -- read.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deeply personal, meandering, a treasure. Longer review likely to follow.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A follow up and response to Coates. Brilliant, poetic depth here, imbued with a power that is almost hard to name. Perhaps the release of (/to?) becoming, the hope that emerges in evolving faith, the possibility of breath in a life meant to suffocate you? Very much worth a re-read. Short, but rich.

“How do you become in a world bent on you not being and not becoming?” (52).

“Be not reconciled to injustice but also not devastated.” (57)

“Imagination doesn’t erase nightmares, but it can repurpose them with an elaborate sense-making or trouble-making.” (71)

“As unpleasant as it is, keep in mind that life is so full of information. The shorthand shortcut is something we all do to manage things. But you do not have to submit to the shorthand that would make you a fiction. Claim your own summary, your own pithy capture of the ocean of who you are. And still, never mistake the shorthand for your whole self. Be ready to metamorphize when necessary.” (109)

“The ritual allows me to access a poetry beyond the word.” (130)

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve read in a while, potentially ever. There is so much depth to it that I’m sure I will need to reread it to grasp every detail. Highly recommend that everyone reads it.

“How do you become in a world bent on you not being and not becoming?”

“Your love is an exceeding sun.”

[Loretta Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Transparency and honesty from a mother's heart and how her love and sons are iimpacted in a nation that at times, devalues their humanity.

[Chanequa Walker-Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful start to my reading for 2020, Imani Perry's "Breathe" speaks to and for mothers who are raising Black boys in the paradox of 21st century America, where they can be viable candidates for president but also be killed with impunity by police officers or White citizens just for existing. Perry doesn't offer easy answers, but she gives voice to the questions and concerns that many radical Black feminists (especially those of us who were Southern born and Christian bred) as we try to parent Black male children. This book gives a first-hand perspective on what psychologists and developmental researchers call "racial socialization," the process by which Black parents try to equip their children to survive and thrive in the midst of a racially oppressive culture. Perry demonstrates how much more complex this has become over the past decade, where both progressive and regressive politics are on the rise. It is a book that should be read by parents of Black children, as well as by White parents who are trying to raise antiracist children.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The time for unearthing is always now.” BREATHE by Imani Perry is beautiful and powerful, and it’s the best memoir I’ve read all year. I read this book slowly, to soak it in instead of rushing to “create content.” This letter to her sons is also a meditation that reckons with what it means to be Black in America. It’s cerebral and emotional in all the best ways literature can be.

I had a lengthy review written but decided to scrap it. This book does not need my performance. Just read the damn book and revel in Perry’s writing. Sometimes being an ally can be: share Black creators, let them speak their truth, accept that truth.

[Robert Currie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an older white guy, I think it's almost impossible to imagine the world faced by African Americans, young African American men and boys in particular. In fact, this is true of all white people, not just men. So it is that Imani Perry has offered this enormous gift. May we take in the wisdom and change our ways. May we cease dismissing another's story simply because we haven't had a similar experience or find ourselves incapable of accepting a reality that runs counter to our worldview.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really great lines but overall this was too meandering stream of consciousness for me

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need a third list...books I want to reread. This book certainly made me realize in a way other books or even life experience haven't, the depths of racism are : how it affects the interior as well as the external circumstances of life of those who are the "object" of it. I say "object" very deliberately because objectification is a main attribute of white supremacy. Anyway, I know that I haven't taken in all the book has to offer.

What does a reader bring to a book that describes living in a way she can't experience? Well, there's the fact of being a human being, someone who is a learner, a mother, but most of all a spiritual person. I am particularly grateful to Perry that she aimed to present all that was important to her, that is part of her. So her spirituality was present, overtly and subtly. "Seeing" that part of her made me believe that we could have a real conversation; she a respected intellectual, me a unique but quite ordinary person.

The afterword is one of the best I've ever read. The reader doesn't get just the usual "birth of the book" and "filling up the holes" narrative. It is full of Imani Perry. A good thing!

[James Klagge · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wide-ranging view of life articulated and shared.
The only observation I'll share is...it is interesting that her (Catholic) Christianity is important to her but she makes almost no effort to share it with her sons. I can see intellectually why one might want one's children to "decide for themselves"...but since religion is as much a practice as a belief, and it is gained as much by osmosis as by instruction, no exposure (to speak of) leaves one somewhat unprepared to engage with religion later in life. She does emphasize the heritage for her sons that comes from the generations that went before, but she doesn't emphasize the importance, indeed often the necessity, of religion to those previous generations. Mightn't carrying on the work of past generations require, or benefit from, the very thing that she holds back? So her treatment of religion felt somewhat puzzling to me.
Well worth reading--certainly by Black mothers of sons, but as well by all who look after and look to the next generations.

[Jakil Anjanette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breathe is a gorgeously written letter that simultaneously captures a mother’s greatest hopes, and fears for her black sons. A documentation of the fight we must engage in to create space for the to claim space in a society that is becoming increasingly hostile toward people of color, Breathe is a must read. I turned the final page with tears in my eyes and a determination to not fold under the pressure to let the fear consume the work of mothering. Regardless of how hostile this world may be, they 👏🏾 gone 👏🏾 get👏🏾 the 👏🏾 excellence 👏🏾 my baby boy is serving up. They getting it unapologetically too!

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is gorgeous, heartbreaking, heartfelt, and incredibly nuanced. There are so many layers to what Perry is doing here, what she is saying to her children but also what she is saying to the reader. It can most obviously be compared to Between the World and Me but it is very different from that book in a lot of ways. Perry has a unique and compelling viewpoint, there are complicated ideas here that take up a lot of brain space (in the BEST possible way) and her writing is absolutely gorgeous. Highly recommended.

[Carrie Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book that feels like the mother’s version of Between the World and Me. I will be forever changed by the authors explanation to her sons that, in order to protect them, she can’t always fight for them in moments of racism because it could make the situation more dangerous. Of course she says that and more so eloquently with the powerful, thoughtful, firm, loving, soothing, reassuring voice that only a mother has.