Into White
Author Randi Pink offers something of a disclaimer with her debut novel.
“It’s ok to squirm in your seat when you’re flipping the page on this book,” says Pink. “It’s ok to feel uncomfortable. It’s ok to put it down a minute and catch your breath.”
That’s because her young adult book is a piercing tale examining race among teens. It’s called “Into White” and comes out Tuesday.
Randi Pink is a Birmingham native. (Full disclosure: Pink works at WBHM). Her story follows Toya, an African-American student at a predominately white high school in Alabama. She prays to become white and it happens. Pink, who is black, talked about the book with WBHM’s Andrew Yeager.
Author Randi Pink’s debut novel is “Into White.”
The inspiration for the book:
“Maybe around 13, 14, I started to question whether it would be a little bit easier to not look the way I look. I’m not exactly sure if I specifically wanted to be in any specific category, but I do know that my mind started to wander. I went to a predominately white school…It’s a shameful thought. Even as a 13, 14-year-old child, I knew that that’s not something I should have been considering. So I buried that.”
Concerns over how it would be received:
“That is something that I had to push down and push to the back of my mind. How is this thing going to be received? How am I going to be perceived as a black woman writing this? I had to hush up those voices if I was going to write something authentic…I knew that I was opening myself up for a fair amount of criticism. And I’m ok with that.”
What she wants to book to do:
“What I do want is for the book to initiate a conversation about the shrapnel we’re dealing with in this post-forced segregation society. What are the real effects psychologically on families, not just black families, all of us? And if it starts some conversation about that, then I’m good.”
An extended interview with Randi Pink:
Israel says it’s arming clans to fight Hamas in Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged the government was arming factions in the Gaza Strip to combat Hamas, after accusations from an opposition politician.
Trump’s travel ban includes Afghanistan, where thousands await U.S. resettlement
President Trump's travel ban on a dozen countries includes Afghanistan. Since American troops left in August of 2021, many Afghans have already arrived in the U.S. but many more are still waiting.
After his mother’s death, Ocean Vuong wrote his way out of grief
Vuong's new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, is the first he's written, from start to finish, since his mother died in 2019. He says writing it was a way to honor her memory.
Trump says he and Musk ‘had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore’
Trump said he was surprised that his former adviser Elon Musk is scorching the Republican megabill, but said he thought Musk was wrong and conflicted in his criticism.
Concerns over conditions in U.S. immigration detention: ‘We’re hearing the word “starving” ‘
ICE detentions have surged, but deportations have lagged. Over the past month, NPR spoke to dozens of detainees, families and lawyers who spoke of overcrowded facilities lacking food and medicine.
In vitro fertilization emerges as a central issue in the Alabama state Supreme Court race
An Alabama fertility lawyer announced her candidacy for the state Supreme Court, emphasizing her personal experience with in vitro fertilization and blasting a controversial 2024 decision that ruled frozen embryos can be considered children under state law.
