How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays

“I am more successful than I’ve ever imagined. Yet, I am terrified of sleeping because my body no longer knows how to dream. I know that people die in their dreams. I am not afraid of death. I am afraid of being killed while dreaming. Driving while Black. Jogging while Black. Dreaming while Black. Loving while Black. I wonder if movement, mobility, love are the features of Black life the worst of white Americans most despise.”

Laymon thinks about his life, particularly in the context of the international uprisings that began in 2020 over police brutality. Despite achieving some fame from his writing and earning more income than ever before, he remains in mortal fear. His thoughts are evidence that education, money, and fame cannot protect a Black person from the indignities and mortal dangers caused by racism. Those dangers are present due to the need for white supremacists to annihilate Black life, now that they can no longer openly own it or circumscribe it.

“The existence of the song is proof that even if we could not bring as much material suffering to white folk as they did to us, we could memorialize and channel the spirits of those beaten and killed by nasty-ass cheaters. Mama’s greatest worry is that I will be shot out of the sky by these cheaters. She is right. One day, I will not get up off the ground. Mama knows that in my dreams, we soar, bullet-proof […] In my actual dreams, I run like Ahmaud. I shoot midrange jumpers like George. I heal like Breonna. I rap every lyric to ‘Fuck tha Police’ in a Monte Carlo packed to the brim with them and Mignon and Tim and Henry and David fiending for new ways to love each other.”

Laymon meditates on the significance of N.W.A.’s “Fuck tha Police” as an anthem of resistance. He names Black people who were murdered by police and vigilantes—“cheaters” driven to annihilate Black people out of fear of coexisting with them. Laymon thinks of those who were killed in the context of what they did in life, particularly the passions they pursued. Ahmaud Arbery was murdered by two vigilantes while jogging. George Floyd played basketball throughout high school and college. Breonna Taylor worked as an EMT.