Review: The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed
Photo by Sterling Davis on Unsplash
Synopsis:
Los Angeles, 1992—Ashley Bennett and her friends are living the charmed life. It’s the end of senior year and they’re spending more time at the beach than in the classroom. Ashley’s not always so sure she actually likes her friends these days, but they’ve been besties since kindergarten.
Everything changes one afternoon in April, when four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death. Suddenly, Ashley’s not just one of the girls. She’s one of “the black kids.”
As violent protests engulf LA and the city burns, Ashley tries to continue on with life as normal. Even as her self-destructive sister gets dangerously involved in the riots. Even as the model black family facade her parents have built starts to crumble. Even as her best friends help spread a rumor that could completely derail the future of her classmate and fellow black kid, LaShawn Johnson. Her world splintering around her, Ashley, along the rest of LA, is left to question:
Who is “us?” And who is “them?”
This is a powerful story.
“We have to walk around being perfect all the time just to be seen as human. Don’t you ever get tired of being a symbol? Don’t you ever just want to be human?”
I was born one year after the Los Angeles Riots in 1992, so I don’t actually know that much about them, just what they touched upon in high school—and sadly, that wasn’t a lot. My mom was working in San Pedro at the time, near the Port of L.A. She just remembers everyone being anxious, tensions were very high, especially because being a city employee she still had to go into work. “It’s similar to what’s going on now, but at that point, this crime against black people and people of color—anyone that looks different—they used to beat the fucking shit out of everybody. And it’s been going on since the formation of the United States. It’s kind of ingrained in our culture, it’s terrible to say that, but it is. The one thing that’s different is that we didn’t have social media then, so a lot of things were coming to us late. It wasn’t in real time.”
I’m actively trying to read more BIPOC authors, especially Black authors, so I was genuinely excited to pick this book up. And I’m glad I did. It’s so frustrating that the story of the riots is still as relevant today as it was in 1992. It’s been almost 30 years, but it’s like history is repeating itself. It reminds us how much more work we need to do, how broken the system really is. As a result, it can be hard to read, but it’s an incredibly important book.
“Be pretty. Never take up too much space…Be a good girl, but not too good; nobody likes that girl. Laugh, but not too loud; you’ll make them nervous. No, don’t be sour…even if you’re having a bad day, month, year, life. They’ll think you’re angry…Be smart, but never smarter than, or they’ll think you’re uppity. Be more…Practice! Dream! Rise! Wait, not so high, girl. Those stars, they aren’t meant for you.”
In addition to police brutality, Reed also touches on intergenerational trauma. Ashley discovers that her grandmother survived the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921 as a child, and how that experience shaped her father’s life and his decisions regarding how Ashley and her sister were raised. Again, I barely remember learning about what happened in Tulsa in my history classes, and I was grateful to have the chance to learn more about it.
This is why this book is so important to read. It really contextualizes historical events that aren’t usually delved into. It’s definitely inspired me to seek out more information about both of these events.
“Even when bad things are happening, we have to keep on living.”
But I was just so conflicted with Ashley as a character. On the one hand, her inner monologue and her identity struggles were incredibly realistic. On the other, I just felt like she was such a passive character. She just lets things happen to her most of the time; she’s sleeping with her friend Kimberly’s boyfriend, but it doesn’t even seem like she liked him all that much. She blurts out the rumor about LaShawn, but doesn’t say anything when her friends start to repeat it to other people. I realize that the book is all about how Ashley finds her voice, but sometimes she was just too flat.
I also felt like the timeline was a bit all over the place. There are so many random flashbacks that it was a little hard to keep track of what was happening. And there were a few pacing issues, but once the story got going, I was completely sucked in. Reed’s prose is absolutely gorgeous, so I didn’t mind the little hiccups.
I’m excited to see what she writes next.
TW: Racism, racist language, police brutality, intergenerational trauma, suicide, child abuse, alcoholism, AIDS, homophobia, bullying, recreational drug and alcohol use, body shaming