Rasheed Newson is a writer and producer of Bel-Air, The Chi, and Narcos. He currently resides in Pasadena, California, with his husband and two children. In his debut, My Government Means to Kill Me: A Novel (Flatiron Books), Newson follows Earl “Trey” Singleton III, who, born into a wealthy Black Indianapolis family, leaves his overbearing parents and their expectations behind by running away to New York City with only a few dollars in his pocket. It’s there that Trey meets up with a cast of characters that changes his life forever. He volunteers at a renegade home hospice for AIDS patients, and after being put to the test by gay rights activists, becomes a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Along the way he attempts to navigate past traumas and searches for ways to maintain familial relationships – all while seeking the meaning of life amid so much death. My Government Means to Kill Me is a queer coming-of-age story following the personal and political awakening of a young gay Black man in 1980s New York City, coming to terms with his role in the midst of a seismic social reckoning.
