Pain. Power. Purpose: The Persistent Self-Education of Oliver James
It’s an innocent enough book. I am certain that, as a child, I wore out my VHS copy of its movie counterpart. Yet, the simple joys of childhood stand in stark contradiction to the burdened grown man on my phone screen. Couched in the front seat of his vehicle, headphones perched on both ears, the setting certainly seems appropriate enough for our orator: this isn’t a cozy reading session, resplendent with fuzzy blankets, hot beverages, and ambient music. This man is in that car seat? Just a quick move away from an ignition that could take him on a journey, or help him run far away.
Oliver James, a 30-something father and gym guy, rose to TikTok stardom after posting upbeat videos with the somewhat self-deprecating but resolutely honest, “What’s up! I can’t read,” the can’t tinged with affable southern-ness–cain’t—before sharing his intention to rectify this injustice. Functionally illiterate, according to his own TikTok bio., James shares with his followers the chilling story of a little boy forgotten and, ultimately, destroyed by a system fundamentally flawed against its neurodivergent and minority students.
A story that’s, hauntingly, all too common.
Diagnosed with ADHD and OCD, James was assigned to Special Education services in his very early elementary years, segregated into gilded classrooms that were less spaces for learning and more preparation cells for the prison hallways they were readying him for. School, for Oliver James, was directly and systematically abusive and neglectful.
And yet, as the crowd of dedicated educators goes mild, Oliver James was given a high school diploma.
A high school graduate who couldn’t read.
Upon his entry to adulthood, however, James understood that the anger, rage, and poor decisions that landed him in federal prison, while systemic not characteristic, wouldn’t be redeemed by the same system: if he wanted to attain the life he hoped for, he would have to fight his own demons. Adult Oliver would have to be the one to rescue the little boy he didn’t get to be.
This is where we meet him, back in his car, a copy of Charlotte’s Web open on his lap like a book of prayer. His underdeveloped reading skills are further strained by the tears pouring from his eyes. His grief is palpable, exhaling in panicked, injured moans: “I’m supposed to know this shit already!!!” What paints itself as rage is really just decades of pain, and before he can allow the negative voices–those of the adults who failed him as a child–the proud, determined, resilient grown man he has become sits up straight, pounds his chest, and proclaims: “I gotta heal! I gotta fight my fears, my emotions! They don’t own me–I own them!”
This video was a turning point for many, launching James’s unfolding story to millions who either sympathized or directly understood; so many who saw themselves and their experiences mirrored or reflected in his own.
James’s story isn’t just the intersection of systemic oppression and failure: it is also the reminder that, while education and literacy are freedom and power, growth and change also require pain and vulnerability.
James continues his work. At once a captivating motivational speaker and also a dedicated personal trainer, he seamlessly blends his aspirations and passions with his reading, often mastering his planking skills while hovering over a book. He continues to read aloud, publicly, on TikTok live, the mission to heal the little boy in him–held accountable to and by the masses–now serving as a light in the darkness, a necessary display of tenacity and vulnerability for the others who, like him, are changing, growing.
So they won’t have to do it alone.
Oliver’s videos now reveal a more confident man, still striving, seeking, searching, working, even his famous lines have shifted, indicative of his resiliency and how far he has come, but also pointing toward the work still to be done.
Two years ago, Oliver James introduced himself to TikTok by asserting, “What’s up! I can’t read!”
Today, the nuanced but powerful shift: “What’s up! I struggle with reading…”
For more on Oliver’s story, follow him on TikTok at @oliverspeaks1
You can also find more on his interview with the Today Show and a spot via NPR.
For another indomitable Black man in the BookTok space, see Oliver James team up with Librarian Mychal.
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