Paul Beatty's essay was actually about his inability to appreciate Maya Angelou, and subsequently his inability to appreciate Black literature the way it's been framed in the white educational system.
"My journey to black literary insobriety isn't so different from how I came to appreciate free jazz after growing up in a house that contained two records, the soundtrack to "Enter the Dragon" and "Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan." It turns out that I enjoy never fully understanding what's in front of me, and I masochistically relish being offended while thinking about why I feel offended and if I should feel offended. I also live in Manhattan's East Village."
Maybe so (I can't access the NYT article right now) but here's a quote from elsewhere:
“I made it through the first couple of pages or so before a strong sense of doom overwhelmed me and I began to get very suspicious. I ventured another paragraph, growing ever-more oppressed with each maudlin passage. My lips thickened … For a black child like myself who was impoverished every other week while waiting for his mother’s bimonthly paydays, giving me a copy of that book was the educational equivalent of giving the prairie Indians blankets laced with smallpox or putting saltpeter in a sailor’s soup.”
"My journey to black literary insobriety isn't so different from how I came to appreciate free jazz after growing up in a house that contained two records, the soundtrack to "Enter the Dragon" and "Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan." It turns out that I enjoy never fully understanding what's in front of me, and I masochistically relish being offended while thinking about why I feel offended and if I should feel offended. I also live in Manhattan's East Village."