_All-American Boys_ by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

A Lincoln 2018 Finalist
There are curse words in some of these quotes. They are left in for accuracy, but know they are there-- don't just cut and paste onto your Smartboard. :)

I don't know... I'm not sure what to label these, but they needed to be saved.

My dad got blown up in Afghanistan, and Ma and everybody we knew and plenty of people we didn't know but knew his name, all reminded me-- he sacrificed for all of us. He sacrificed for the good of the country. He died in the name of freedom. He died to prove to the wackos of the world who didn't believe in democracy, liberal economy, civil rights, and all that shit, that we were right and they were wrong. But for me, my dad was dead, so the frigging wackos won. And, seriously, who are the frigging wackos, anyway? I sure as hell didn't feel sane all the time. p31 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

Custody. A police officer-- not the one who did this to me, but a different one, the one who fingerprinted me-- stood outside the hospital room on guard, making sure I didn't run. As if I could. As if I were a real criminal. As if I were a criminal at all. He stood watch at the door until my parents arrived. p44 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

"How you feelin', Rashad?" the pastor asked. Everybody was asking that, as if I  was ever going to tell the truth. Nobody wanted to hear the truth, even though everybody already knew what it was. I felt... violated. That's the only way to put it. Straight-up violated. p89 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

________________________________________
"Well, listen,  I better be going. But we're gonna keep you lifted in prayer, Rashad. And we're going to add you to the blessing list for the sick and shut-in."

But I'm not sick or shut-in. I'm beat down. Is there a list for that? But I didn't say it. p91 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
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"Man, listen, I had to make sure we controlled as much of the narrative as possible. If I ain't send that photo in, they would've dug all through the Internet for some picture of you looking crazy," Spoony said. "Trust me, man. I've seen it time and time again." p94 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

I didn't even want to think about the preacher preaching about how God is in control of it all, or my mother, my sweet, sweet mother caught in the middle of it all. The referee who blows the whistle but is way too nice to call foul on anyone. That's her. She just wants me to be okay. That's it and that's all. So if football was going to be the thing that took our minds off the mess for at least a few hours, then fine with me. Let's cheer and scream and cuss at the TV. Not at each other. p101 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

That's when I noticed his right fist was stuffed into a bucket of ice water on the grill shelf beside him, all casual-- frigging hell, he had scabs all over his knuckles-- like nursing his wounds from Friday night right there in front of everybody at the BBQ was NBD! p110 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

Maybe everyone else at the party was nervous for Paul, but I was nervous about him- especially as I followed him down to the driveway. p118 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

"Randolph," Spoony said, introducing himself with his government name. p54 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely


Victim Blaming

"Were your pants sagging? Dad interrogated, now back over by the door.

"Were my pants sagging?" I repeated, shocked by the question. "What does that have to do with anything?" p49 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

Taking action/ getting involved

"Calm down? Calm down?" Spoony's voice got significantly less calm. "Haven't we been a little too calm? They get to do whatever they want to us, to him-- to your son-- and we're supposed to just calm down?" He put his hands on his head, flattening his locs, rocking back and forth in the way people do right before they punch the wall. p52 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

I gotta admit, there was a part of me that, even though I felt abused, wanted to tell him to let it go. To just let me heal, let me leave the hospital, let me go to court, let me do whatever stupid community service they wanted me to do, and let me go back to normal. I mean, I had seen this happen so many times. Not personally, but on T.V. In the news. People getting beaten, and sometimes killed, by the cops, and then there's all this fuss about it, only to build up to a big heartbreak when nothing happens. The cops get off. And everybody cries and waits for the next dead kid, to do it all over again. That's the way the story goes. A different kind of Lifetime movie. I didn't want all that. Didn't need it. p59 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

"It's not about that, Quinn." Ma leaned forward and grabbed my hands. She waited until I stopped looking out the window and looked at her. "It's about how the world looks at you and when they do, who do you want them to see? What kind of a person do you want to be? Who do you think you are? You're the one your brother looks up to. You're a senior, Quinn. This is the year everyone looks to see what kind of man you want to become." p69 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

"We have the right to voice how we feel, and isn't that better than just doing nothing?" p200 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

"Because I was scared. My brother took the bus trip down to Selma. He begged me to go. Begged me. But I told him it didn't matter. I told him that he was going to get himself killed, and that that wasn't bravery, it was stupidity. So he went without me. I watched the clips on the news. I saw him being beaten with everyone else, and realized that my brother, in fact, was the most courageous man I knew, because Selma had nothing to do with him. Well, one could argue that it did, a little bit. But he was doing it for for us. All of us." p245 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

p264-265 The conversation between Quinn and his mother is a great piece for conversation

How schools handle a crisis (in this case, of course, one of their students being beaten by the police)

And so I was thinking about all that when I got to Ms. Webber's class. After she got us settled, she explained that she had a change of plan for the day. We'd get back to our study of marginal utility another day. Today we were just going to sit quietly and work on a practice section for the next test. Quietly. She emphasized that. Quietly. But as we got started, it was all too easy to see Ms.Webber twitching, smiling like she was reminding herself to, and anybody could tell she was nervous and just wanted a silent and nonteaching day of class. p133 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

_____________________________
Nobody was getting much done in class, and I had to hand it to Mrs. Erlich, because she trashed her trig plan for the day and wrote a bunch of facts and figures on the board, which I started copying into my notebook, fast.

In 2012, in the United Kingdom, the number of people (regardless of race) shot and killed by police officers:1.

In 2013, in the United Kingdom, the number of times police officers fired guns in the line of duty/ the number of people fatally shot: 3/0.

In the United States, in the seven year period ending in 2012, a white police officer killed a black person nearly two times a week.

"I'm not much of a talker," she finished up. "You know that. But I know numbers. The numbers don't lie, kids. The numbers always tell a story." p254-255 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
______________________________ 


Humor

It didn't take long for me to realize that hospital gift shops have terrible gifts. At least that one did. I mean, really bad gifts. Oh, so sorry you're in the hospital having your legs amputated. Know what'll make you feel better? A snow globe with a unicorn in it. Oh, so sorry to hear about your cancer. But I've got just the picker-upper. A refrigerator magnet of a lighthouse that says SPRINGFIELD. Ain't no lighthouses in Springfield, but who cares! p149 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

Journalism

p186-187 a news interview that would be great to discuss


Racism

It was like Jill said. Nobody wanted to think he's being a racist, but maybe it was a bigger problem, like everyone was just ignoring it, like it was invisible. Maybe it was all about racism? I hated that shit, and I hated thinking it had so much power over all our lives-- even the people I knew best. Even me. p262


.... because some people told me racism was a thing of the past, they'd told me not to get involved. But that was nuts. They  were nuts. And more to the point-- they'd all been white people. Well, guess what? I'm white too-- and that's exactly why I was marching. I had to. Because racism was alive and real as shit. It was everywhere and all mixed up in everything, and the only people who said it wasn't, and the only people who said, "Don't talk about it" were white. Well, stop lying. That's what I wanted to tell those people. Stop lying. Stop denying. p292 All-American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

**Any mistakes in the above quotes are my own. Let me know if you see them so I can fix them.**


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