Sakia Gunn was a fifteen-year-old black teen who was violently targeted for a murdering due to her identifying as a lesbian. Leah Lakshmi realized the magnitude of this hate crime and used it as a platform to bring awareness to the situation. There has been and currently exists a structural problem that consistently harms people of color. Historically hate crimes were blatant, showing up as lynchings and other publicly violent portrayals. However, recently hate crimes have become more invisible. The murder of Sakia Gunn was a clear example of the structural discrimination against a minority: sentencing took longer than historical averages, media under covered the event, and the murders got punished less severely. By having a poem about Sakia Gunn, Leah Lakshmi is remembering an event that many do not remember and forcing readers to remember the structural flaws within the system. …show more content…
Leah Lakshmi implies the neutrality in the novel over the stance of abortion through working at an abortion clinic, appeasing the pro-choice side, and referencing a song named “To Zion” to appease the pro-life side. The main reason for the neutrality was to not begin a morality debate of abortion but rather focus on the relationship between sexual abuse and abortion. She demonstrates this relationship while in a scene at an abortion clinic. The main character was assisting in the abortion for a seventeen-year-old girl, when Leah wrote, “She shouldn’t have this Child of uncle or rape,” highlighting the exception when most pro-life agree with the circumstance of