Gene's Blog

A book review: A Good Kind Of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramee

I started this book, then put it down, I was SO angry as I read. I didn’t know why. I’d forgotten just how cruel children can be to each other, how unreasonable school administrators were even as I grew up a long time ago. I’m a 72 year old white male, that is not what generated my anger. I had the good fortune to spend my career in a field that served all races and I slowly learned that the color of our skin is irrelevant, as is our sexual orientation. I served, hired, trained supervised and managed people of every race and orientation. I realized that under our various colors we were one people with the same hopes and dreams, and fears. This changed me in ways I would never have imagined growing up as an extremely poor white kid on a farm with no people of color at all in our community.

So I picked the book up again and though I was still angry through much of the first two thirds of the book, I began to realize why. The “United Nations” of Shayla, Isabella and Julia is a microcosm of America today for people of color. Only Black Americans did not immigrate, they have never been allowed to fully assimilate in ways every other race has, it is only they who are still victimized most by racism, who are being killed simply for the color of their skin. Other races have, and do, face discrimination for various reasons but not as severely as Black people. Black Lives Matter is not racist, it is a cry for understanding and help. The simple responses of All Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter completely overlooks that is is ONLY Black lives that are being taken. Black people have been asking for change since the abolitionist movement began in America. The 1619 Project clearly demonstrates the need for that change.

America is changing rapidly, demographically, more than half of all children under 15 are not white. By 2043, the nation will be less than half white. This is not something to be feared, it is a wonder to be embraced because as we begin to see that we look more like each other, that our hopes, dreams and fears are the same, we can begin to navigate our way to a nation that is free, strong and equal for us all. This book is a primer on how to do that.

The book is told from the POV of Shayla who has two best friends of many years, Isabella who is Latinx American and Julia who is Japanese American. As they enter middle school, their relationships begin to change as they change. They come from one of five elementary schools which feed into Emerson Middle School, they had few children of color in their relatively well to do area. It is at Emerson that they begin to meet other children and begin to understand the challenges each group faces. They clash over their changing dynamic, they begin to move apart in ways that naturally happen as children mature and merge into ever larger schools.

There is a trial underway as the book begins, a far too common issue for Black Americans, a female white police officer has killed a Black man as he walked away from her. There is video, Shayla assumes that the police officer will be held accountable because there it is ON video, exactly what happened. Her new Black classmates, and her activist sister, feel she is not “Black” enough because she has friends of other races and does not actively seek out friendships within her own race. She doesn’t understand, in the beginning, why this is an issue, she learns through the book that her race is treated differently than others. The white police officer is acquitted because she “feared for her life” as has so often been the case in America but has only in recent decades begun to get the attention it deserves.

The acquittal sparks protests, near riots, and Shayla begins to understand the Black people face different challenges than other races simply because of the color of their skin. She begins to see how that happens, there is a Black boy whom she is afraid of and she slowly comes to realize that the prejudices of other races, white in particular, are present in her as well. She slowly becomes aware that she needs to learn more, find her own voice, and explain to her friends (Julia has virtually dropped out of their triangle) that although she knows they face discrimination too it is Blacks who are being killed, not other races. She begins wearing a black armband in support of Black Lives Matter and ends up educating the entire school on the issue. You need to read the book to find out how. I can only say it is brilliantly done by the author. As I said earlier this book is a primer on how all Americans can begin to overcome our racial prejudices, find common ground and come to realize that a diverse America is a great America. White people are afraid of losing their place but there’s no need for that, there’s room here for all of us. We will, the entire world, eventually become a polyglot of races, mixed races and languages as envisioned in the novels of Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. This is inevitable, there will be resistance along the way born out of fear, but the more we learn about each other over time, the less that fear will be and eventually (barring climate catastrophe) we will be One People on One World. I find that exciting and welcome, we’ll all be the better for it despite the challenges along the way as we find our way through our differences to realizing we all have the same hopes and dreams and that standing united against hate is our only path forward. Great book, I can’t recommend it highly enough.