“A Light in the Darkness”: Angie Thomas’ Concrete Rose, Tupac & Oscar Grant
By Rachel Amaru, Co-Founder of Good Trouble For Kids
The relevancy of Thomas’ books for young adults (and adults) is indisputable. Like Nic Stone and Jason Reynolds, Thomas confronts head on some of the difficult experiences of growing up Black in America. She presents the complexity of Black characters too often read by white America as one-dimensional, and successfully uses AAVE (African American Vernacular English), without being reductive. (See this review article on Book Riot for a further discussion of AAVE in Literature). Angie Thomas does in her books what Fruitvale Station (please read this film review) did in film: she does not let her audiences ever forget that her characters live complicated lives, not easily broken down into simplistic binaries of good and bad, or rich and poor. People make mistakes, they may live on the edge, they get pregnant as teenagers, they do drugs, they end up in prison, they end up in college, they fall in love, they love their babies, they abandon their babies, they are in gangs, they are in the street, they graduate from high school (and they don’t), they own businesses, some get killed by the police, some get killed by gang members, some have dads in prison, and others have parents at home. All of them live lives worth examining.
At one point in the novel, Mav takes Lisa to the doctor for a pregnancy checkup, and is taken aback by the fact that it is a Black medical practice:
“Wait a minute. Black receptionist, Black nurse, Black doctor. Everybody who work here is Black. I didn’t know that was … “possible” not the right word. I’ll just say I didn’t know.” (236)
This recent article in Forbes discusses the dearth of Black men becoming doctors in the US, and the disturbing impact of that on Black health: “Studies demonstrate that African Americans can have better outcomes when treated by Black doctors,” explains outgoing NMA president Oliver T. Brooks, MD.
This article, also in Forbes, addresses the situation of Black women and the medical profession. It cites this quote by Joycelyn Elders, the first Black Surgeon General in the US: “you can’t be what you can’t see.” As Lisa and Mav would likely attest, “A black female patient receiving care from a black female doctor has more trust, better communication and shared medical decision-making.”
Black professionalism is addressed by the character of Mr. Wyatt who takes Mav under his wing, offering him a job in his store, discipline, and counsel about finishing his education, even if it is to get a GED. He then recommends Mav continue on with community college, or trade school.
“You’re gonna need a business loan, son,” Mr. Wyatt says. “As a Black man, you walk into a bank without some type of education, they’re gonna laugh you out of there.”
Access to capital is, of course, key to successful entrepreneurship, and this article by the Chamber of Commerce offers some suggestions for how Black owned businesses can get funded. The other necessary piece is that white people need to support more Black-owned businesses. For instance, book lovers can buy from any of these 125 Black-owned bookstores on Oprah Magazine’s list. We’ve recently been purchasing our books from Shop at Matter (via Bookshop) a Black and woman owned local bookstore in Denver. We’ve also supported SemiColon, a Black woman-owned bookstore in Chicago.
Thomas also addresses the changes that need to be made to the US educational system. When Mav goes to visit his school counselor, he looks at all the framed black and white photos of Black historical figures, including Malcolm X and Huey Newton, who he learned about from his dad. But as Mav poignantly states, “I never heard them mentioned in a history class.” (270). I have to acknowledge that I didn’t either. I was lucky that my dad (a history teacher at the local community college) taught me about some of them, but it wasn’t until I was in graduate school and took an African American autobiography class that I really read any of their writing in an academic setting. I sincerely hope some changes are being made to high school and college curricula that include a more diverse take on what accounts for American history and literature. It is a pity that Mav did not have access to something like what BLM 5280’s Freedom School offers young Black students in the Denver metro area. In addition to seeing more Blacks entering the business, medical and legal professions, academia must begin to diversify in a significant way. As this article in Time magazine states, “It is difficult to overstate the political, pedagogical and personal importance of Black teachers.” The authors elaborate further:
“The best contemporary research reinforces what historical anecdotes reveal. Black teachers today are, by nearly every metric, more successful at supporting the achievement and well-being of Black children. Black students who have even one Black teacher during elementary school are more likely to graduate high school and consider college. Black students with Black teachers experience less exclusionary discipline and fewer office visits, a crucial break in the school-to-prison pipeline, a disturbing and widespread trend in which school-discipline interactions lead to interactions with the criminal justice system. And it is not only Black students who benefit from being taught by Black teachers; research has shown that students of color believe teachers of the same race hold them to higher expectations and are more culturally sensitive than their white counterparts. These skills and mindsets are critical, especially now, as Black students face a new wave of trauma initiated by police violence against Black bodies, and schools grapple with the ways in which they often perpetuate racist systems.”
As I have mentioned previously, I went all the way through elementary, middle school, high school, and college, without having a single Black teacher and professor. Finally, in graduate school at the University of Colorado in Boulder, I had the opportunity to study under Professor Terry Rowden, who became one of my mentors. Unfortunately, he did not stay at the University of Colorado. Wanting, understandably, to be in a more diverse setting, he went to teach in the east coast, and later down south. I am beyond grateful for the three years I had to study with him, but deeply regret not having encountered many of the authors he introduced me to while I was in high school and college. They shouldn’t have all been new to me.
Mississippi Writers
Angie Thomas still lives where she was born and raised — in Jackson, Mississippi. Mississippi is home to some other really powerhouse writers, like Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy, who used to teach at Vassar College, in my hometown of Poughkeepsie, but now is a professor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Mississippi; and Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing (a book I reviewed on Story Remedy), who teaches at Tulane. Out of curiosity, because I am quite taken with Laymon and Ward, I did a Google search adding Thomas’ name, and found this interesting piece on Black Mississippi writers. Thomas is quoted as saying Mississippi is “known for amazing writers — and racism.”
Tupac.
Tupac was the title source for Thomas’ The Hate U Give, as well as for Concrete Rose. (You can read more about Tupac and his poem “Concrete Rose” in my write-up on Nikki Giovanni). In this video, Thomas elaborates on the influence of Tupac and she also mentions Oscar Grant, whose life and death are depicted in Fruitvale Station, the film mentioned in the beginning of this write-up.
Oscar Grant
“Elegy for Oscar Grant: A Found Poem” by Saeed Jones
In a painting that no longer exists // One boy kissed into bliss
by myth, who can’t remember // to see as beautiful what I thought would destroy me.
In a painting no longer // Maybe he was too calm during the taunts of the police. // “If you were smoke,” he said, “you’d be the smoke that rages from a forest fire, close and wild and dangerous.”
He is the thing that happens only once // His name wasn’t even a word. // Let him go.
(Note: this poem is composed of links, some of which no longer work. It was posted on Saeed Jones’ blog on July 11, 2010, along with a painting by Kehinde Wiley).
In Concrete Rose, the prequel to The Hate You Give, Angie Thomas imagines a different future for Maverick than that granted to Oscar Grant or Tupac. She imagines a young Black man who lives to see his daughter grow up to be “a light in the darkness.”
