New Kid, Jerry Craft

Delia LaJeunesse

I found myself laughing and very light while reading this book. Which I appreciate. A lot. So much of the work we do is heavy, somber, beautiful, but rarely with the levity found in New Kid. What I appreciated most about this levity was how subtle it was: from Alexandra who bizarrely floats instead of walks, to the facial expressions every time Jordan experiences or witnesses racism. This is a subtlety afforded to well-crafted graphic novels. It is a subtlety that is beyond the text alone, that is gathered through the observation of the visuals.

As with all graphic novels, I strongly urge two readings of this — the first time through go with the flow, you’ll likely focus mostly on the text, because that is how we are trained. The second time through make it a strictly visual reading. You’ll just be turning the page, just observing, letting your eye get caught, curious. Every time I do this I am astonished by all that I missed the first time. For example, the upper frames on page 21, I didn’t initially understand Jordan’s reaction, I didn’t take the time to sit with it until my visual reading. And once I did, I realized it’s quite an important frame in understanding Jordan’s awareness of race relations around him.

Or, as another example, on page 47 there’s a street sign that reads, “J. Max Bond Jr.” who I looked up and am so glad I did! He was an American architect that created worked based on experiences. Black people in architecture is important! Architecture shapes so much of our world, and we don’t even recognize it. Of this, bell hooks, my guru and favorite cultural critic says, “It is so interesting to think of that moment when we will be able to open up books and read about architects who are black or who have been inspired by African-American experience and love of blackness to see how that love informs how we think and talk about space.”

Facial Expressions

In your second reading I hope you pay close attention to the facial expressions. This is where I learned the most. This graphic novel allows us to glean so much about each character, just by observing and understanding the facial expressions and body language of the characters. This layers on depth and complexity that can sometimes be really clunky to explain via narrative or dialogue.

Here, we see Jordan have a reaction to witnessing prejudice. We learn by the end of the book when he stands up to Andy that he’s always kept quiet when he witnesses this type of thing, but that it eats at him. This conflict is clearly on display here, with his hand outstretched as if he is about to interfere, but his lip bit, holding him back.

Notes From Jordan’s Sketchbook

Every time we got a little glimpse into Jordan’s sketchbook I was thrilled with his depth of perceptivity. This spread is my number one. It’s humorous, but also indicative of the journey he goes through twice a day on the bus. It says a lot about code-switching, about the threats he experiences, and the experience he has of being seen as a threat. It points out totally corrosive, yet subtle racism. And it’s that subtlety into which he brings the humor, though this humor should not be mistaken as being okay with this. Nobody should have to reference quadratic equations in order to be perceived as non-threatening.

Throughout the book Jordan and his little angel friends are overjoyed each time they see another student of color. Solidarity! Understanding! they cry out. But, brilliantly, Craft shows us that, duh, not all black kids are the same. So here we have Jordan and Maury trying to connect and totally missing, as sometimes happens between two people of divergent backgrounds, interests, lifestyles. It’s friendly and reciprocal enough, but we can see in the image of them on two separate planets that it is a lonely moment. Visually speaking, I think this is the most powerful page. So much is gathered.

A little exercise”: Imagine for a moment this was not a graphic novel. What might be missed if this was just dialogue? How does Craft lean on the visuals to relay meaning, to enhance the text (or vice versa!) Without the images, what do you understand of this page?

“Gritty, Urban Reminder of the Grit of Today’s Urban Grittiness”

The motif of the “gritty” African American book covers and “escapist literature” totally cracked me up. It’s a problem that precisely this book addresses! Both Rachel and I have talked about this before, but we are still severely lacking in stories that depict black life not in strife, but in joy, thriving, full of well-being and community and family and art. This is precisely what this thread throughout the book is calling for, and also making fun of.

So once again we have humor and poking fun at the experience of subtle and simultaneously overt racism, while acknowledging that it’s really a problem. What I love about Jerry Craft’s approach is how it recognizes that when racist experiences are daily, they are normalized, they are something that is joked about in the in-community. They have been known forever, even as white people seem to only now be waking up to the horrors of it. It is this in-community knowledge that makes Jordan constantly seek out other kids of color. Because it’s so nice when you don’t need to explain anything, when you are just understood. When you have that kind of shared understanding, you’re really permitted to bring humor into the lived experience, to make light of.

White Allies

I like this frame a lot. In it we learn a lot about Liam. Early on in the book Liam said something about Maury-o rhyming with Oreo and how he didn’t get it, which Jordan explained to him. Much later in the book we see Maury overhear Liam exclaim Hello Mr. Oreo, which he directed at a box of Oreos, but Maury mis-interpreted it. Instead of getting defensive, or remaining oblivious, Liam pulled from what Jordan taught him and sought to correct it.

Maury didn’t hear this correction, but instead of getting upset about it or aggressively chasing after him to prove how “woke” he is, Liam in this frame looks so tender and genuinely concerned for the hurt he caused and gently calls out, “Maury?”

I highlight this frame specifically because I feel he is in it as an ally. I mean, he’s so focused on righting his wrong that he’s spilling his Oreos. This is a white kid who listened carefully when he was taught something about racism, and is here trying to enact it, offer a corrective.

What was your favorite frame? What did you learn from the visuals in that frame that you would have missed otherwise? Doing these exercises can help train your brain to think critically about visual art, and sharpen your arts literacy, which is a great step towards utilizing art as a tool in liberation struggles.