Throughout the novel, Bri regularly points out to the reader what she and her fellow black students are supposed to do: work hard, attend college, and ultimately, get out of Garden Heights and the poverty that most people of color in the neighborhood experience. By exploring the ways that Bri must try to keep herself safe as she navigates her world, as well as examining the ways in which people of color more broadly are denied opportunities of all sorts, Thomas illustrates clearly and viscerally how people of color are systematically set up to fail and in a world that fears them and denies them opportunities to succeed. Bri and her black and Latinx classmates are targeted by the guards, Long and Tate, with shocking regularity and for no reason other than the color of their skin-and though Bri is only sixteen, plenty of people that she comes into contact with see her as a threat for the same reason. The subplot of On the Come Up that deals with the racist security guards at Bri's school offers the reader a window into what it's like for Bri, a young black woman, to move through a prejudiced world.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |