You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey by Amber

Ruffin & Lacey Lamar

“If you do not take the time out and call bad things that have happened to you ‘bad,’ they float around your brain category-less and with influence from the type of people who want to penalize you for calling racist things racist, and those events can fall into the ‘okay’ category.” – Lacey Lamar

Laughter and racism should not go hand-in-hand, but Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar found a way to tell just a small portion of their stories with great humor. I laughed, I cringed, my jaw dropped open in shock, I cried…this book had it all and was so powerful because of it.

Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar are sisters and Black women. Amber lives in NYC and works as a comedy writer. Lacey lives in their hometown of Omaha and experiences the craziest encounters with racist people you can imagine (that don’t involve physical violence). Amber says Lacey is a magnet for these people, and judging by this book, I would say that is sadly accurate. The book is mostly written by Amber, but I loved when Lacey interjected because her words were so compelling and the back and forth between the sisters made for an even more interesting book.

I want so badly to share some of the stories in this with you because it is the type of book you need to talk about with someone. As a white woman reading it, I knew racism was real and rampant, but the sheer number of incidents experienced and the ludicrous things people say were shocking. They should not have been, I should be more aware, but they were.

Okay, I can’t end this review without telling just ONE of the stories. I will start with the first in the book because it’s not a spoiler if it’s the first page, right? Lacey had checks with Black history heroes on them and was paying at a grocery store with a check. The cashier, a young white woman, took the check from Lacey and said, “Wow! You have checks with your picture on ‘em?” The picture on the check was of Harriet Tubman. I don’t even need to show you a comparison for you to know how ridiculous this was, but there is a side-by-side in the book and, of course, they look nothing alike!

I need to end this review before I can’t stop sharing their stories, but please, read this book.

Check out You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar at the Library (https://catalog.lclibs.org/polaris/search/title.aspx…).