Medcalf: Banned LGBTQ love story is next choice for anti-racism Mary Ann Key Book Club

When I was a kid, Dustin Diamond — who played Screech on “Saved by the Bell” — came to my middle school. I don’t remember why, exactly. But, based on the response, you would have thought Prince or Will Smith had walked into the building.

We were shocked.

Once the kids found out, they — we — chased him into a classroom, where he stayed until our teachers could get everyone to calm down and back off. In the pre-streaming era, you could never count on reruns in the TV world. So we all watched the same episodes at the same time and came back to talk about them at school the next day.

The actors and actresses on my favorite shows — “Saved by the Bell,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “The Wonder Years” and “Family Matters” — were icons to us. But they also had another impact on my childhood: They shaped my perspectives on adolescent love. Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski. Will and whoever he was dating that episode. Kevin Arnold and Winnie Cooper. Steve Urkel’s failed attempts to woo Laura Winslow.

Those shows, however, also told a story that left members of the LGBTQ community in the shadows, because they always involved a young man and a young woman. In “The Stars and the Blackness Between Them” — our selection for the seventh season of the Mary Ann Key Book Club — author Junauda Petrus tells a story that has often been told in the margins.

Our goal with the Mary Ann Key Book Club — an ongoing partnership with Hennepin County Library, Friends of the Hennepin County Library and the Minnesota Star Tribune — has always been to encourage dialogue, new perspectives and the continued fight against racial injustice. And it’s important to acknowledge the LGBTQ communities within communities of color in that ambition.

It’s also important to show that support right now. The turbulence afoot and the proclamations against anything “DEI” is nothing more than a culture war that aims to whitewash American history and reality. Books open our eyes to experiences we might not otherwise know because our families and social circles lack members of those communities who might be willing and able to convey them.

“The Stars and the Blackness Between Them” is currently on the list of books banned around the country. But with our book club, we will center Petrus, her book, her story and the community she loves.

This is a love story unlike those I saw when I was young.

In the opening pages, Mabel, a young woman, discusses her love for a superstar that also details her journey to understand her sexuality.

“All I can do is lie in bed and think of young Whitney Houston from the eighties,” she says. “I have her album ‘Whitney’ next to my bed. I found it at the thrift store last week when I was there with my mama, and I been sleeping next to Whitney every night ever since. My mom thinks it’s cute since Whitney was her idol growing up, and she was inspired by her singing and style and stuff. But I feel like Whitney and I are connected in a special way for some reason.”

It’s interesting that Petrus references Houston, who, per documentaries and books written about her after her death, also grappled with her identity. In “The Stars and the Blackness Between Them,” Audre moves to Minneapolis from Trinidad to live with a father she does not really know after she gets caught in a relationship with another young woman by her mother.

She soon meets Mabel and they develop a friendship and a bond that shifts as Mabel endures an illness and begins to think about her own mortality.

There are caring loved ones in this book. There is talk of healing and acceptance. And there is a tale of two young women who learn, over time, how much they mean to one another.

“Audre, can I ask you a weird question?” Mabel says in the book. “I would like to kiss you one day if you’re into it.”

I look forward to speaking with Petrus about her book on April 23 at 6:30 p.m. at Central Library in Minneapolis. (Register at tinyurl.com/keybookclub to attend the event in person or on Zoom.) I also look forward to giving her a platform that so many of our LGBTQ community members have not been granted. The Minneapolis-based writer and filmmaker has aspired to change that with her book. I hope our book club can support Petrus in that mission.

I never read or watched stories like the one in her book when I was young. As I continued to read, I thought about all of the young people who historically have been afraid to explore love in the way that they feel it, especially in a climate that has attempted to punish and dismiss the experiences of people who have already faced perpetual danger for simply existing.

This feels like an urgent moment and a key opportunity to be an active ally with marginalized communities throughout the Twin Cities.