In today’s episode we talk about the meaning of “So Please Understand” & The "Why" Behind the Book.

Holly Noon is a millennial born in the late 1980s who grew up where most schools were desegregated by the time she started kindergarten, and 30+ years after Martin Luther King Jr. had died.

She is biracial or blasian as she defines herself, being that she is Black and Filipino. She grew up not knowing her Black biological father, and eventually, her birth mother would marry a White man who would adopt her as his own. She grew up in a community with some Black people but was mostly made up of middle to upper-middle-class White people in a suburb of Jacksonville, Florida. While growing up, she experienced racism herself in the form of verbal name-calling and micro-aggressions from White peers. Holly made it a point to write or speak on the issue of racism whenever she had the chance in school. She realized that it was a problem and made it a point to educate others to improve their awareness of how offensive their actions are to people of color. Now, only in high school, Holly was aware that she was missing information and did not know anything about the African Diaspora besides what she learned in school about slavery and the civil war found in the textbooks assigned to her.

It was not until Holly went to college to earn her bachelor's and master's that she started to fully understand the Black experience because she could interact with Black people from all walks of life. She was at a university where she could read all types of books on the African Diaspora and talk to professors who were Black and taught on the subject matter.

During her college experience, Holly came to understand the full impact racism has on minorities. That began to shape how she would address racism issues not just being perpetrated against her but other people of color in her adult life. As a mother, Holly finds this book essential to write because she hopes that racism will not exist by the time her young children become adults.

The next guest, Karlton Kilby is from the baby-boomer generation and a Black man in America, so his experiences with racism were different as he grew up in an era where Martin Luther King Jr. was still alive and fighting for civil rights. He grew up in an area of Ohio where sections of the city were segregated. Karlton has seen violence committed against people of color, had unpleasant interactions with the police and addressed his skin color issues throughout his life head-on.

Throughout his life, he has worked to uplift the younger generation of Black people to succeed despite certain obstacles in their way. Karlton was an officer in the military, an executive in corporate America, and led various professional organizations. Yet with all his accomplishments, this did not elevate him to be exempt from racism. When he shares his perspective about how racism does exist, it shall serve as a reference point for all that change still needs to happen in America because even in his 60's we are still dealing with it. He is a Black man in America with children and grandchildren who wants nothing more than to educate others to eradicate racism for future generations.

Link to buy book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08Z9W53G6