The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

Gender and Expectations

It was part of that disorienting feeling she'd had for yeas, that feeling that everyone except her had been issued a handbook. Samantha knew it was important to be pretty and cute, but she had no idea how to be those things, or even why she was supposed to want to be. p23

But now being a girl was like being stuffed into a heavy, constricting costume. She could barely breathe in it. The rules of the universe were fixed: You look a certain way and so you have to act a certain way and people are going to treat you a certain way. There was no way to alter it. p24-25

"You're the only one who knows what you feel," Sasha said. "If that's the word for what you feel, then stick with that." p26

p33-35 has a great glossary for gender/ sexuality terms

"For how vehemently I felt like I wasn't a girl, I have to say, being a boy isn't super great either," he admitted. "Both sides have such bullshit baggage attached to them." p290

Lines I Loved
 
Never let your obstacles become more important than your goal. p68

Prison and the Prison System

kids and their rights in prison- p137-138

John J. Dilulio, Jr., political scientist from Princeton "A super-predator is a young juvenile who is so impulsive, so remorseless, that he can kill, rape, maim without giving it a second thought," he explained. And he warned that the numbers of these "fatherless, Godless, and jobless" teens were growing. By the mid-2000s, he predicted, their numbers would double or even triple, unleashing a tidal wave of violence across the nation. "As many as half of these juvenile super-predators could be young black males." p162

Today the FBI's juvenile violent-crime index, which measures arrest rates for murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, is lower than it was in 1980, and that's true across racial lines. The violent-crime rate among black youths, in fact, has dropped by 60 percent in the past two decades, and the homicide rate has dropped by 82 percent. p163

"First of all, he doesn't know how to spell homophobic, much less be it." p190 What a thing for your lawyer to say! 1st, it doesn't make sense. 2nd, you're calling your client stupid? Great. Awesome defense, there, buddy.

"...whenever anyone goes to prison it harms the whole community, it has ripple effects up and down." p235

Correctional officers had the power to punish young inmates by adding time to their sentences, with the result that California juveniles were locked up almost three times longer than the national average. p277

Journalism

how media latches onto things, can even inadvertently construe things p144-145

???

Someone was there to visit Sasha. He said his name was Max and he claimed to be "a pastor from Sasha's hometown." p156 (This is SCARY!)

Prejudice

Even someone who isn't sure what they think about hiring people who are black, gay, or transgender can feel the essential wrongness of hurting someone because they are black, gay, or transgender. p170

Neo-Nazi reaction: "They were having a really hard time," she said. "An African-American? Oh, evil! But then it's a trans kid wearing a skirt. What?" p192

"People have different habitats," he explained. "Some people have it better than others. They grew up in good neighborhoods. Their family has jobs. They have good income. They don't understand. Their life is so good, they think everybody's life is good. They don't understand the struggles people go through. I don't know where you grew up at, if it's like a low-income area, where there's a lot of violence and crime. But if you have family that does crime? You see it. It has an impact on you. If you're around it a lot, it's hard to do good." p197

Being a Teen
 
how adolescence affects the brain p172-175

Restorative Justice

Without the circle, they said, the whole thing would have blown over, but the residue would have remained. p239

"We do not understand your action," Debbie went on. "But we also think that hatred only leads to more hatred and anger. We don't want you to come out of prison full of hate." p264

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