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An agender white kid of privilege, Sasha, sleeps on a city bus. A Black kid with a juvenile record, Richard, sets fire to Sasha's skirt. In a world that leans toward the polemic, many people have strong feelings about what should happen to Richard, even in Oakland where the teens live.
This might be a joke that is funnier to the melanin deprived than Black people. The deck was stacked against Richard. Despite being agender, with parents who still forget their pronouns, and having been set on fire, Sasha gets by alright. They have a solid group of friends, they go to a great school, get into the college of their choice and find their people there. Richard, who did a really fucked up thing (he thought the skirt would spark for a second and go out), isn't as alright.
Slater tries to tell the teens stories even-handedly, and I think succeeds, but there's still something that rubs me the wrong way about the book. Even though it's about the kids, is the author somehow centering herself, as the historiographer? It reads like an episode of This American Life, where listeners/readers are treated to a fascinating true story that doesn't entirely impact them. Still, Slater highlights important realities that people need to understand, like
This book, which is meant to be even-sided, does make one strong argument, and that is that trying juveniles as adults is fucked up. Or at least that's what I got from it. One of Richard's supporters says,
CHILDREN ARE CHILDREN. In fact, per Inside the Teenage Brain, brains are still developing into one's twenties, and that immaturity regards understanding consequences.
There's also a missed opportunity identified in the narrative: transformative justice. The kids and their families were interested, but the fucking DA wouldn't pursue it. The DA also withheld material from Richard that might have impacted how Sasha's mother spoke of the crime at sentencing.
Slater provide a timeline of gender-neutrality milestones. Did you know that Australia has been allowing people to put an X on their documentation since 2013, and for the same amount of time Germany has provided "indeterminate" as an option on birth certificates?!? Ever fair, she also has a section of juvenile incarceration stats, identifying African-Americans' disproportionate share of the population and the risks they face while incarcerated--and how much it costs to keep them in jail, which seems like an out of place stat, meant for rich and white people, who might be more convinced by the economics of imprisonment than the injustice of it.
"They couldn't figure out who to root against," [Sasha's father] Karl explained. He grinned. "It was a really hard time for the neo-Nazi community."
This might be a joke that is funnier to the melanin deprived than Black people. The deck was stacked against Richard. Despite being agender, with parents who still forget their pronouns, and having been set on fire, Sasha gets by alright. They have a solid group of friends, they go to a great school, get into the college of their choice and find their people there. Richard, who did a really fucked up thing (he thought the skirt would spark for a second and go out), isn't as alright.
Slater tries to tell the teens stories even-handedly, and I think succeeds, but there's still something that rubs me the wrong way about the book. Even though it's about the kids, is the author somehow centering herself, as the historiographer? It reads like an episode of This American Life, where listeners/readers are treated to a fascinating true story that doesn't entirely impact them. Still, Slater highlights important realities that people need to understand, like
Transgender people are the victims of an astonishing amount of violence. One out of every four trans people has experienced a bias-driven assault, and the numbers are even higher for trans women, trans people of color, and people who identify as neither male nor female.
This book, which is meant to be even-sided, does make one strong argument, and that is that trying juveniles as adults is fucked up. Or at least that's what I got from it. One of Richard's supporters says,
"Not that it's not a horrible crime," one explained, "but it's also a crime to try a child as an adult."
CHILDREN ARE CHILDREN. In fact, per Inside the Teenage Brain, brains are still developing into one's twenties, and that immaturity regards understanding consequences.
There's also a missed opportunity identified in the narrative: transformative justice. The kids and their families were interested, but the fucking DA wouldn't pursue it. The DA also withheld material from Richard that might have impacted how Sasha's mother spoke of the crime at sentencing.
Slater provide a timeline of gender-neutrality milestones. Did you know that Australia has been allowing people to put an X on their documentation since 2013, and for the same amount of time Germany has provided "indeterminate" as an option on birth certificates?!? Ever fair, she also has a section of juvenile incarceration stats, identifying African-Americans' disproportionate share of the population and the risks they face while incarcerated--and how much it costs to keep them in jail, which seems like an out of place stat, meant for rich and white people, who might be more convinced by the economics of imprisonment than the injustice of it.