Can I Be Ernest?

In a pursuit of love, recognition, and belonging, Can I Be Ernest? offers an unfiltered and often self-deprecating look at formative years spent growing up in gritty 1980s New York City-where sharp humor and emotional turns shape a lasting outlook on life.
Born to a dignified African father and an American mother, Ernest reflects on identity, cultural expectation, and belonging during a defining period in Black America, tracing his journey from adolescence through early adulthood.
While grounded in personal experience, Can I Be Ernest? functions as a reflective self-help guide for younger readers entering adulthood-offering lived insight on self-worth, identity, and the long-term cost of chasing acceptance.
Exploring education, unhealthy relationships, fatherhood, and the responsibility of defining one's own path, the book challenges the false myths we inherit in the search to belong.
Profoundly introspective yet laugh-out-loud honest, Can I Be Ernest? blends candid truth, self-aware humor, a love of baseball, and rich nostalgia into a coming-of-age reflection meant to be revisited-and remembered.