They Said This Would be Fun by Eternity Martis
Audiobook, read February 2021
They Said This Would be Fun, by Eternity Martis, is a memoir about the author’s time as one of the only Black students at Western University in London, Ontario. This book is angry and unapologetic, full of fact-based rage that asks you to hear and understand the harrowing experience of being Black in Canada. Detailing her own experiences of verbal abuse, sexual assault, threats of physical assault, and endless microaggressions from friends, students, and strangers, Martis does not offer up any easy solutions, but instead asks you to just step up and hear what Black Canadians have been trying to say for decades: racism is alive and well, and it is killing Black Canadians without a second thought.
I say this book doesn’t offer up solutions just because–sometimes–when I read about systemic issues that do not personally affect my life (cis white gay woman), I want an action-based book that directs me as to how to be, how to act, what to do next to help with dismantling this. But it is nobody’s obligation to give me that, and Martis’s book is no less powerful for not doing that. This book may not spell out its reader’s next step, but it does offer a few reminders:
Mainstream media reports only a fraction of anti-Black racism, and when it is reported, it is rarely reported fairly; so much more goes on than what you hear about
Just because someone’s experience sounds so violent or unfair that it seems like it must be a unique or rare experience, that does not mean it really *is* a rare experience. See point number one.
Stop trying to explain away marginalized communities’ and individuals’ hate-based experiences (see point number 2)
Rage is a perfectly reasonable response to oppression, and it is nothing but a privilege and a gift when a member of an oppressed community chooses to adjust their tone for you. We should learn to receive rage with the same compassion we receive grief, and we should figure out how to learn from it. (See point number 3)
Martis’s book is hard, it’s triggering as hell, it’s painful, it’s nauseating, and it is so, so important to read. Listening to this book, for me, was a crash course in holding space for terrible things I don’t understand, and trying to understand them. This book is not asking for sympathy, but solidarity. Everyone should read this book.
