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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 鈥渢anned very easily鈥 and that he was living with her because his black father didn鈥檛 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

Available now

44 minutes

Last on

Tue 27 Oct 2020 03:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Mon 26 Oct 2020 12:06GMT
  • Mon 26 Oct 2020 18:06GMT
  • Mon 26 Oct 2020 23:06GMT
  • Tue 27 Oct 2020 03:06GMT

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