All American Boys Essay

All American Boys, co-written written by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, is a young adult novel told from the perspectives of two high school classmates, Rashad Butler and Quinn Collins. Rashad is savagely beaten by a police officer who wrongly suspects that he is shoplifting, and Quinn witnesses the entire beating but originally pretends he did not. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the novel, All American Boys, looking at it through the lens of a racial and ethnical theory. Often times race and ethnicity can be confused as the same thing, but this essay will use two separate working definitions. “Race theory refers to the ways physical appearances of a person are used to identify groups of people. Ethnic theory refers more to the cultural identity of a person, such as their customs or language” (Spencer). Both work together to challenge the oppression of others based on their cultural identities. All American

“Language has also been used in very self-conscious exercises of power. Hateful and derogatory terms are often created by the powerful to ‘put people in their place’ and demonstrate precisely who has the ability to name others” (Spencer). There are a few examples in the novel of how terms are used to describe a person or a group of people in a negative way. The first example is seen during the assault in the first chapter. While the cop is beating Rashad he says, “Fuckin’ thugs can’t just do what you’re told. Need to learn how to respect authority. And I’m gonna teach you” (Reynolds & Kiely, 26). The cop is in a position of power, and he uses this position of power to label Rashad as a thug and justify that he is beating him senselessly. The term thug is generally related to criminals or someone who is violent, and the police officer was saying that Rashad fit into that group of people when in reality he was a good