Taye Diggs pens new book for children about racial injustice

Actor Taye Diggs has penned a new children’s book about racial injustice in the U.S. titled “Why?: A Conversation About Race.”

Diggs’s new book, with illustrations by Shane W. Evans, give youth readers a straightforward look at social activism through the eyes of Black children as they learn why things are happening. 

The book answers a series of questions children ask adults including “Why are people crying near a makeshift memorial?” and “Why are protestors shouting?”

“I needed to be honest,” The “All-American” actor said in an interview with The Associated Press. “And sometimes being honest and real can be uncomfortable. And I think that that’s OK.”

The book also discusses how some protests turn into riots, with an adult saying in the book “Sometimes buildings must burn … The buildings burn for us. The anger burning those buildings is us.”

Diggs also said he wants his book to be honest and not declare what’s right and wrong, adding he wants to look into the roots of the problem and start a conversation, something that didn’t happen during his childhood, the AP reported. 

“If someone had taken the time to sit with me and say, ‘Well, let’s see. Why do you think these people are doing this?’ then that opens up a different conversation,” Diggs said in the interview. 

“Why” is the fifth collaborative children’s book between Diggs and Evans, who become friends while they were students at a Rochester, N.Y., performing arts school in the 1980s, also attending Syracuse University together. 

In an interview with USA Today, Diggs said his 12-year-old son inspired him to write his latest book.

“My own kid is getting old enough where no one believes in Santa Claus anymore,” Diggs told the newspaper. “My kid was [at the point] where he needed to know. We needed to at least have a discussion, and that is what I wanted this book to do.”

The book, published by Macmillan’s Feiwel and Friends imprint, will be released on Feb. 1.