The black child raised by white supremacists
African-American writer Shane McCrae grew up with his racist white grandparents. Poetry became a salvation and helped him make sense of his difficult and abusive upbringing.
Shane McCrae is an award-winning African-American poet and writer whose work often addresses the black experience in the US. Poetry for him was a way of making sense of his difficult and abusive upbringing. As a child, Shane was raised by his white maternal grandparents in a deeply racist household. His grandmother taught him the Nazi salute, told him that he “tanned very easily” and that he was living with her because his black father didn’t want him. But when Shane was a teenager, he would learn the truth about the racial prejudice and deception that divided him from his father Stanley.
Shane's latest collections of poetry are called Sometimes I Never Suffered and The Gilded Auction Block.
Any comments please email us on outlook@bbc.com
Presenter: Emily Webb
Producer: Maryam Maruf
Picture: Shane McCrae as a child
Credit: Courtesy Shane McCrae
Last on
More episodes
Broadcasts
- Mon 26 Oct 2020 12:06GMT±«Óătv World Service
- Mon 26 Oct 2020 18:06GMT±«Óătv World Service except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa
- Mon 26 Oct 2020 23:06GMT±«Óătv World Service East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa only
- Tue 27 Oct 2020 03:06GMT±«Óătv World Service
Contact Outlook
Info on how we might use your contribution on air
Podcast: Lives Less Ordinary
Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected