This Is My America by Kim Johnson

Synopsis:

Every week, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time--her dad has only 267 days left. Then the unthinkable happens. The police arrive in the night, and Tracy's older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a "thug" on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike. But will Tracy and her family survive the uncovering of the skeletons of their Texas town's racist history that still haunt the present?

This Is My America was so good! I loved every second of it! It was breathtaking and I couldn’t peel my eyes of the pages. Okay, those were all lies. I stopped to work and read my emails and eat and talk to my friends. What’s true was the intense focus I had on this book, and how all I could think about whenever I wasn’t reading it was to go back to reading it.

Before I go into my thoughts and opinions, please forgive me if any of my words or expressions offend you. It is only because I don’t know better, and internet is not helping, and if someone comments and educates me, I would surely learn quickly 😊

Tracy Beaumont is a strong strong girl I could never compare to. In the book, she writes to an organization called Innocence X, one that helps with court appeals and financially challenged families. And Tracy’s Dad being on death row seemed to be one of those cases. What struck me as weird was how she didn’t catch the attention of the organization immediately in the book. But then, that’s the side of things I’m not part of and can never understand I guess. There must so many such cases that an organization, as far as it reaches, couldn’t handle them all. Even when they finally come and help, they mention that their cases don’t always result in a happy ending.

I love books that resonate with me, but reading books that moved me, even though I could never ever truly understand these people’s pain, is just as deeply jarring as those other books I relate to. Tracy’s focus has always been her family. Her brother, Jamal, her sister, Corinne, her mother…and of course, her father. For someone in a privileged position like me, a Chinese where the society’s majority are Chinese people, I wouldn’t understand the lengths they need to go to feel safe. It just goes to show how much strength they had to live in such times.

Throughout the book, one question rings in my mind again and again. Why? Why are the white people so against the blacks? Why is it that they cannot accept that black people could be good people, decent people, or that white people can be the bad guys. Why could anyone be so cruel, so hurtful, so inhuman? When I see someone I don’t like, the most I do is pettily trip that person up, especially rude people on the train. But to actively hurt someone, and to even bind that person to a cross and burn him/her? That’s so beyond anything I know about humanity, morality…and just…kindness. How is it we can accept the one race and not accept another, especially when we know (WE KNOW) that these races exist, and that they can be good or bad just like ourselves, that it is the heart and the actions that defines him/her, not their colour. Especially when we teach our children how to be kind, and friendly. It baffles me greatly!

One sentence in Kim Johnson’s note at the back of the book struck me: “This Is My America is a piece of fiction; if this story were true, there wouldn’t be an immediate happy ending for the Beaumonts. They would continue to live in the same society, combating racial prejudice and inequality – with all the disadvantages and stains of post-prison survival and recovery.” This is how serious the problem with, that no matter how old a person is, being born with colour will mean that the trials he/she faces is always more, that he/she must always do more to gain trust and respect, that an uphill battle is before him/her. We need to be aware how people around us are the same, how they feel what we feel, and how they hurt as we hurt. We need to look into our hearts and find the kindness I just know everyone is born with, that when you look at your friends and feel sympathy when they’re hurt, that we’ll remember no matter how they look or what colour their skins are, they hurt the same way we do.

All in all, the ratings are:

5/5