An interview with Taye Diggs about his new book, “Chocolate Me”

Last week, I was asked, along with four other bloggers, to take part in a phone interview with Taye Diggs about his new children’s book called Chocolate Me!

Before we dig into the interview, let's take a quick look at what Taye's new book is all about:

Chocolate Me! is a children's book based on Taye Diggs' experiences of feeling different and trying to fit in as a kid. Originally written in college as a poem about his difficulties understanding his looks and differences as a child, Chocolate Me! was transformed into a children's book after teaming up with longtime friend, illustrator, Shane Evans.  According to Taye Diggs, Chocolate Me! is a book about "Self-esteem, self awareness and self-love." 

Here are some highlights from the interview:

* Taye on his struggles as a child to understand race and how he fit in:

"There was that bout , my bout with my struggle at that time as a 5 year old, just understanding the nature of race as far as white people and black people are concerned or black people and black people are concerned. Right about that time when I was 5, after that conversation I had with my mother, that kind of sustained me because things remained fairly simple until, it was around 5^th grade, because we moved a bunch of different places. And then later, we moved back into another suburb where the neighborhood was very diverse, but my grade was not. It was an interesting kind of contradiction, where the suburb we moved to was when I was first introduced to upper-middle class black people, but I was the only black person in my class. So there were still issues. I remember there was one black girl and me and whenever people would pair off, they would immediately just assume that we would partner. They weren’t very liberal with their thinking, the teacher included. When I got into high school I started to hear, just from the black community, “oh everybody is more attracted to the light skin girls and the light skin dudes and the light eyes.” And from within the race the light skin black people and more lighter brown people would make fun of the darker people. So then it was a completely different kind of struggle. And then funnily enough it was when dark skinned men, and this was just from my perspective, there seemed to be a shift where all of a sudden we saw Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes, Tyson Beckford. For me personally, when I saw Tyson Beckford kind of haled as this beautiful man by all people, that caused a shift in my being. And I remember literally waking up and walking the streets feeling a little bit more proud."

* Taye on why he wrote Chocolate Me!:

"The idea to write this book came far before I was a father. I knew that I wanted to be a father, but that had no influence on the actual writing of the book. The inspiration came straight from more of an experience of being a son… my mother’s son. That being said, once we got pregnant, my perspective completely transformed and though the words didn’t change, though the message didn’t change, how I felt about what I was writing changed and I just started to get really excited for the day that I could read my book to my son. That really became a moment that I was very much looking forward to. And every time I continue to read the book to my son, now he can say the words along with me. Words cant explain how it makes me feel. So it was more my intentions changed once we found out we were pregnant, but that didn’t have any affect on the words that were written."

* Taye on how his book can help discuss all types of diversity:

Me and my wife, we discuss this and we’re still trying to figure some of this out just with Walker and what he should call himself and how he views himself. When I was growing up if you were half a shade darker than white, the white people would not accept you. You weren’t white. There were white people that didn’t necessarily look white and they had issues too. These days, thank god, people are a little bit more accepting and people’s views are broadening and it’s not as accepted to just choose one, how you might have been forced to in the past. I think it depends on the parents perspective and how they feel about those issues and how they kind of want to pass that down to their child. As proud as I am of my blackness, I think it’s important to show Walker that he should be just as proud of his Jewish mother and all of the culture that that includes as well. I’m sure at some point its going to come down to a choice that our children make and unfortunately where they go to school and the influence of their friends plays a large part in that decision. So to answer your question, going back to the book I think once again I think it goes back to the strength that we need to have as a family unit at home and to just provide as much of a positive perspective, including all of the races and cultures that your child possesses so that when it comes to that point  when he or she is  kind of forced to make a decision, the child either doesn’t and just says I’m including all of this, or depending on however he’s been guided, can make a choice. The older were getting, the more complicated it can get. But then again it doesn’t have to be.

This was a fantastic opportunity and I was really proud to be a part of this. Taye was incredibly gracious and really easy to talk to. I appreciated his open and honest responses to our questions and his willingness to really share a lot about his difficult experiences as a child. My favorite part of the interview was when he talked about how excited he was to read and share his book with his son. That left no doubt in my mind that Taye is a true Book Dad! I'll have more next week about the Taye Diggs interview as well as a review of Chocolate Me!

In the meantime, check out the following links for more information on the book.

Website: www.ChocolateMeToo.com

Facebook: www.Facebook.com/ChocolateMeToo

Twitter: www.twitter.com/ChocolateMe

Taye's Twitter: @TayeDiggs

Taye's FB: www.facebook.com/TayeDiggs