Episode 31: Banned Book Review #7: All American Boys

Are you doing these critical things to help your child succeed academically? Take the quiz now to find out the important actions you can take to enhance your child's education. Go to my website, liberationthrougheducation.com quiz and take the quiz today. Foreign welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned education researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions when I with school educators and administrators, as well as the microdiscriminations that I had as an African American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to know how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. If you're looking to find out more about current topics in education that could affect you or your children and the practical actions that you can take to address those issues, then you're in the right place. In today's episode, I will review another book from the Band Book List, All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Keeley. The intent of this and the other monthly book reviews is to examine, to analyze, to investigate why these books were on the banned book list for K12 public school reading for the 2021-2022 school year. I'll continue to review these books until I complete the list of books that you're most interested in and that resonate with you. So let's begin. The main characters in this book are Rashad Butler, English Jones, Shannon Pushcart, Carlos Green, Quinn Collins, and Spoonie Butler. The setting is in Springfield. Here's my summary. Rashad was in the 11th grade at his high school and he was in the rotc. He always looked forward to Fridays because he and his friends would usually go to a party in the evening after school was out. On one particular Friday, he stopped at Jerry's Mart to buy some chips and gum. He he realized that he only had a couple of dollars to buy the goods, so he reached inside his duffel bag for his cell phone to call his brother Spoonie, whose real name is Randolph, to let him know he was going to stop by his job at UPS to get $20. There was a lady in the store who was making a decision about which beer to buy, and as she turned, she tripped and fell into Rashad. The clerk in the store heard the rockets and called the policeman who was on duty in the store over to check it out. The clerk accused Rashad of stealing the chips and before Rashad could explain. The policeman had him in a restraining hole and then placed handcuffs on him. The policeman proceeded to push Rashad outside, knock him down on the sidewalk and punch and kick Rashad even after he was in handcuffs. The policeman even called for backup. Rashad was placed in custody even when he was in the hospital. For the first couple of days, he suffered a broken nose and a couple of broken ribs, but he was alive. He stayed in the hospital for about 10 days. Quinn had the all American look. What did that even mean? Quinn's father was killed in Afghanistan and left behind his mother and his younger brother Willie. Quinn's friend Guzzo had an older brother named Paul who was a cop, the same cop that was pummeling Rashad. Quinn recognized him because he was getting ready to go in the cherries to score some beer in preparation for the party. Spoonie was very upset about what happened to Rashad, saying that it wasn't right and he wasn't going to let it go. Rashad's father was disappointed in him and his mother just was sad that it even happened. On Sunday, Spoonie and his girlfriend Barry were able to find a video of Rashad's beating online from someone who posted it from their cell phone. They gave the video to the media and in the police news report on tv, they mentioned Rashad's name. Rashad couldn't believe it. He was in disbelief and felt like a victim. His father was furious. Quinn felt nervous about being around Paul. He also felt that all the kids at school were looking at him because they knew of his relationship with Guzzo's brother, Paul. Quinn also felt that he was caught in the middle, trying to be on the side of Guzzo's family and then also trying to understand the perspective of Rashad, especially since actually on the scene when Rashad was beaten by Paul, he felt torn in his allegiance to the family as well as to his basketball team, of which Rashad was a team member. Being white, he could walk away from the whole situation without even being noticed. He could walk away and not think about Rashad in the same way that any of the guys at school who were not white could not. Not doing something was bothering him and he decided he just couldn't walk away and do nothing. Rashad knew that he didn't deserve to have gotten beaten up. His friends and family didn't deserve to be in the positions they were in either, which was dealing with the incident in their own ways. There was a tag on the steps of the high school while Rashad was still in the hospital and the tag said Rashad was absent again today. Spoonie showed a video of that tag to Rashad and said that the kids at his school just wanted to do something, maybe even a protest. He said that all everyone wants is just to feel like they can be who they are without being accused of being something else. Quinn and other classmates were in an English class in which they were reading Richard Ellison's the Invisible Man. Certain passages in the book seem to resonate with the current situation with Rashad, and the class took turns reading the book out loud. These were the words that seemed to ricochet around the class that day. Nobody says the words anymore, but somehow the violence still remains. If I didn't want the violence to remain, I had to do a hell of a lot more than just say the right things and not say the wrong things. A flyer that the students used to announce the protest had a quote on it from Desmond Tutu. It stated, quote, end quote. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. Mrs. Fitzgerald was a lady who volunteered in the hospital gift shop that Rashad had met, and she told him that sometimes when people get treated as less than human, the best way to help them feel better is to simply treat them as human, not as victims. Spoony planned to protest to make a statement about Rashad's beating. Quinn decided to join the protest, as did Rashad's friend, his mother, and others in the community. Plans for the march were all over the news. The police responded with tanks coming down the streets. There were thousands of people in the protest and thousands of cops too, dressed in black paramilitary outfits. The protest was actually a die in with all the protesters lying on the concrete and someone on a microphone and a PA speaker recited the names of young unarmed black men and women who had been killed by police in the last year. Quinn was finally able to see who Rashad was during the protest. They were arm lengths apart and they looked at each other and communicated. I see you. This book is a 2016 Coretta Scott King author honor book and a recipient of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children's Literature. Again, the question comes up, why is this on the banned book list? Well, one of the reasons is that the book's theme is similar to that of the Hate U Give and Dear Martin. Centering on the injustices surrounding white police officers, beatings and or shootings of young African American teenagers. It describes the experience of a teenage African American young man who was enjoying his junior year in a public high school, playing on a basketball team and hanging out with his friends. The focus of the story is on a police brutality incident from which the main character was beaten to the point he was put in the hospital. It describes the conflicting feelings that he felt which ranged from anger to confusion to embarrassment. The story also focused on the ancillary characters who were affected by this incident, including his friends and family. The story ended in a symbolic protest about other young black lives that had been killed or beaten by white police officers. It is not discussed in this story about the case or whether they would be a trial. The office did do a nice job in comparing and contrasting the perspective from another student at the school and a basketball team player who was white and the turmoil, conflict and self examination that he had to experience as a result of the beating incident to which he personally witnessed. The student had to come to terms with facing not only his racism but but the racism that exists in America. The authors also portrayed the tensions within families, the family of the police officer who beat Rashad, as well as the tensions within Rashad's own family, especially since his father was a former policeman. Once the protest was underway, Rashad's father came to terms with his own mistake as a police officer and joined his son in the protest. I think this book is worth reading for young adults because it gives insights into internal struggles with victimhood and racism, the close ties of friendships, and how each person has to deal with social injustice. It provides the perspective of the teenage African American youth who sought to understand why this incident occurred in the first place, as well as how he was going to make his voice heard. I also think the book provides yet another example of the inner and outer turmoil that exists in times of brutality and social injustice. The examples that the authors provided about the typical teenage thoughts, activities and conversations are very relatable to the young adult audience. It's a book that middle school students and high school students will find glimpses of themselves within the pages. I'm glad that these authors, as well as the previous authors of books similar to this, decided to write books relatable to the young adult audience on the impact of social injustice physically, emotionally and psychologically. In order to raise their awareness on this very important topic, these authors reiterate that this is just one of the realities of growing up black in America. If this is the type of subject matter and discussion that resonates with you, please subscribe to my podcast on whatever service you're listening to this also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a comment a rating or a review and share this episode with anyone that you think would find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family, family and community about my podcast. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. By the way, if you have an urgent question about a current issue that you're experiencing or a specific topic that you'd like me to cover and explore, shoot me a quick email@kimberationthrougheducation.com to to let me know what your question is. Anyone whose question is selected to be discussed on one podcast episode will receive a $25Amazon gift card. You can also connect with me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter using the handle kimjfields. 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