During the time period of the novel “All American Boys”, the reader can easily see how many characters, white and black, deny the fact the racism still exists during that time period, even when their own children are threatened by the police brutality and unnecessary violence.
One of the main characters, Rashad, is a adolescent black male that get horribly beaten by a police officer over a simple misunderstanding that escalated out of control due to the sole fact that he was black. Rashad couldn’t believe what had happened himself when he wakes up in the hospital, but reality crashes down on him when his own father doesn’t believe he was innocent and the police officer that beat him was called a hero for serving in the “line of duty”.
This is similar to the string of police brutality reports in high crime areas like Detroit, where innocent people and children do get hurt or killed in situations that should not have ended the way they did. This caused certain movements like the “All Black Lives Matter” movement, that brings these injustices to the attention of the whole country. In connection to this, there is a peaceful protest at the end of the novel that brings to light police brutality still occurring despite the civil rights movement being over and the false reality of equality the whole nation blinds themselves with.
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