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Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

I found this book to be very in tune with what is going on today related to Black Lives Matter and police brutality.  The book opens with the main character, Justyce, being beat up and arrested while he is trying to get his drunk white friend home from a party, and it sets the tone for Justyce trying to balance anger with "What would MLK do?"
I am a white late middle age woman and what I read was the in. your face everyday nature of the racism that Justyce faces, in both big and small ways.  What I did not see is that this book is set in a white upper class school where Justyce has one classmate of color.  The girls he dates are white.  He doesn't seem to have much in the way of friends, neither black nor white.  I read a review that siad, "where are the black girls in this story?"  She contended it is written not for a black audience, but for a white one.  That the choice of MLK as the spiritual guide is one that has white visibility, whereas Malcolm X is a more realistic choice for a black teen.  There are so many pitfalls on the path to understanding what is the right and the wrong this to support, and this book has some of those complications.

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