Everything and Nothing at Once

For readers of Kiese Laymon ’ s Heavy and Hanif Abdurraqib’s A Little Devil in America, a beautiful, painful, and soaring tribute to everything that Black men are and can be Growing up in the Bronx, Joél Leon was taught that being soft, being vulnerable, could end your life. Shaped by a singular view of Black masculinity espoused by the media, family and friends, and society, he learned instead to care about the gold around his neck and the number of bills in his wallet. He absorbed the “facts”