I Feel Like I Gotta Say Jaleel Now - A Review of Growing Up Urkel, A Memoir

​Of course, prior to the release of this book, I heard the interviews and I scrolled the social media pages of his castmates, double checking everyone’s temperature on Jaleel White’s memoir. When I first saw the cover on my Audible feed, I was excited and immediately shared the upcoming release with the Black Icons Book Club. We all pre-ordered and awaited the download date. We took a break from our Black icons, and upon our returns to work, we got down to listening to Growing Up Urkel.
 
Overall, it’s a good listen. I found it to be very insightful. White shed light on a lot of things that I never would’ve given a thought to. I was a TGIF fan growing up, and of course a major fan of Family Matters. I even dressed up as a female Urkel in the fourth grade for Halloween. Back then, in the thick of the nineties when there were so many child stars to relate to, admire, and look up to, we never thought about the effects of fame. When we millennials reached our early twenties is when we learned that fame at a young age isn’t all it's cracked up to be. We participated in the auto-typecasting of actors like Jaleel White. The minute we saw his face on screen, we expected to laugh and we did. We laughed no matter what he was doing. We nudged each other saying, “look at Urkel tryna act.” Now that we’ve reached our forties, many of us feel bad for contributing to Hollywood’s exploits. We’re interested in finding out the truth and we’re giving those same child stars we laughed at, space to show us all they can do. Now hearing what it was like for White all those years ago creates a different experience when watching Family Matters nowadays.
 
I’m on the fence about some of the comments White made about his castmates. I think somehow I already had the impression that because he was the star of the show, he was treated better than everyone else on the show. It may have been just enough for him to say that he wasn’t. I don’t think he needed to comment on reasons for Jaimee Foxworth’s vague exit from the show. She’s had ample opportunity to speak on it, and White’s comments about her lack of skill seemed petty. He talks about his friendship with Kellie Shanygne Williams, but then he drops a comment about her weight that was something like, due to personal reasons she couldn’t maintain an ideal weight, and therefore left Hollywood. That threw me off. If he’s her friend, and it was personal reasons, why mention it at all? It’s like he was saying things about people that no one asked him about. It was weird and petty. The story about Bianca Lawson floored me. He really thought that girl was using him and he based that on her interest in his future. Like, maybe for a time he thought he was being used. But now, he’s gotta know she was trying to see if he was worth her time. She was trying to see if he was of her caliber. Now he can’t escape his childhood character and her face has been seen in a range of films and tv shows. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her play the same role twice. White’s parents were real regular, he knows damn well he’s in desperate need of Lawson or Gordy (or Ross, or Jackson) magic.
 
It sounds like White had to fight not to be taken advantage of, but I’m not sure the battles are over. Whoever advised him on this memoir and edited it must’ve had ulterior motives. Why else would anyone let him make such unnecessarily absurd comments?  
 
On the other hand, I applaud his parents for doing the best they could. While they made their mistakes, we know there are parents who’ve done much worse. I am proud of White for never succumbing to drug abuse, or extreme bouts of depression. I enjoyed his transparency about his personal shortcomings that he’s aware of. I hope the work on this memoir and the reactions to his interviews revealed more to him. I like that he continues to push forward and pursue his dreams. What is life without a star to reach for, right? And I hope that he can finally fully experience a time in life when someone is not looking at him as Urkel.
 
I gave it four stars.