First look: Amanda Seales delivers potent truths in her new book Small Doses

Potent truths are contained within Amanda Seales‘ Small Doses.

We can promise that much about the stand-up comic and Insecure star’s new book, which blends academic intellectualism, black American colloquialisms, and pop culture fanaticism for a one-of-a-kind read. Small Doses, whose title is drawn from the author’s podcast of the same name, marks just the latest project for Seales, who also just announced summer dates for her hit comedy game show, Smart Funny & Black: U Kno The Vibeonics: 101 Tour.

EW has an exclusive first look at Seales’ book, but first, a little synopsis: “This volume of essays, axioms, original illustrations, and photos provides Seales’s trademark ‘self-help from the hip’ style of commentary, fueled by ideology formed from her own victories, struggles, research, mistakes, risks, and pay-offs. Unapologetic, fiercely funny, and searingly honest, Small Doses engages, empowers, and enlightens readers on how to find their truths while still finding the funny!”

EW can debut three short, biting excerpts of topics Seales covers in Small Doses. Read on below, and be sure to check out the book’s official cover above. Small Doses publishes Oct. 22 and is available for pre-order.

Excerpt from Small Doses, by Amanda Seales

TITTY PICS

I don’t send nude pics. Never been my thing. I could claim that it’s because I refuse to objectify myself before the male gaze, or because I exercise a high level of discretion and am too responsible to allow for images of my body to make their way to the masses. You’d believe me if I said either of those. But if I’m being honest, the true reason I don’t send nudes is because I’m insecure about how my boobs look in photos!

Listen, blame it on me being an overachiever, or plain old fear, but if I’m going to send a topless pic I want it to look Louvre-worthy: a masterpiece of areolic proportions, a titular triumph, so to speak! However, only once have I been able to attain a pic even remotely resembling that. Otherwise all attempts have been off-kilter captures with one boob perky and in place, looking dead on, damned near smizing into the lens and the other looking off to the left like it hears its phone in the other room.

NUDE COLORED ANYTHING?

All this time, black women have been wearing the bras, panties, and nylons of white women. I know someone just read this and is confused. “Nude” has forever and a day solely been based on the skin tones of white women! From Band-Aids to ballet shoes to lipstick. “Nude” was never about the fact that there are all different types of skin tones. Finally that is changing. The spectrum is broadening to acknowledge the fact that black women may also want to wear undergarments that are flesh-toned! We may also want to wear dance shoes that elongate our lines by continuing our hue to the toe! We may also want to wear a Band-Aid that attempts to be inconspicuous! When you are not a black woman, it is so easy to overlook these simple everyday things because they have always been at the ready for you. I don’t even know how they cooked up twenty-five shades of no-melanin pantyhose! The time has come for a shift in that paradigm. Black women are out here. We’re fly. And we want our Spanx to match our skin tone just like everybody else!

GLOW ON

I believe that everybody has a candle within to guide them. Some people seem born with theirs aflame. It’s lit! Yours may take a few attempts. Just know that the person you follow on Instagram that always seems #blessed has trouble keeping their glow burning just like the rest of us. It’s understandable, all sorts of things can get in the way: insecurity, the Saturn Return, that full set of baggage you need to unpack in therapy, and the arduous path to Living in Your Truth, to name a few. Though getting your Gandalf on and duking it out with your demons can seem daunting, be encouraged, because the power is all within you. You don’t need anyone else’s approval, or any achievement of success, or any level of privilege to get to work on clearing the way for your candle to do its thing, thus enabling you to do your thing! Deciding to do the work is your choice, and with choice comes freedom! Whether spoken in the prose of Shakespeare, “This above all: to thine own self be true,” or spit in the verse of Rakim, “It ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at,” to glow on is to emanate self-love from within and let your light be a beacon of boldness that lets the Universe know I’M HERE.

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