white boy shuffle


            The White Boy Shuffle has been one of the strangest books I’ve read, but in its strangeness it has forced me to re-evaluate some things I have always accepted. The first big concept it made me reconsider is “collective self-esteem.” Linking one’s one self-esteem with the success of a sports team is something I’d always taken for granted. Everyone around me had done it as long as I can remember. Gunnar’s de-familiarized description, talking about how he has everyone watching hanging by a thread, was pretty mind-blowing as a result.
            Gunnar’s experience also forced me to consider how success might not always “feel good.” Gunnar did not have to struggle to succeed, and seemed to be giving minimal effort in basketball, and even in poetry. His talents don’t feel special to him, they’re just naturally what he can do; he would literally have to struggle to do badly. Succeeding doesn’t feel satisfying without any work put into it.
Before he can process it, Gunnar has immense pressures coming from every angle. He ends up feeling defined by what people think of him, and it’s only basketball and “street poetry.”  

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