Police brutality
The novel is quite explicitly a commentary on police violence, especially against the Black community. Rashad, a Black high schooler, is wrongly accused of shoplifting and attacking a white woman in a convenience store. The police officer’s brutal beating of Rashad is disproportionate to Rashad’s supposed crime. Rashad’s wounds are so bad that he is hospitalized for six days, while his community wrestles with the implications of the incident. Was Paul Galluzzo, the officer, just doing his job? Did he use excessive force? Paul claims Rashad was resisting arrest, but Rashad and witnesses contest that, pointing out that Rashad was on the ground and handcuffed and Paul continued to beat him. Rashad is used as a symbol for a national conversation about police brutality. Friends and family in the novel share examples of when they too faced harassment by police who were abusing their power. Rashad’s own father, a former police officer, reveals that he too was guilty of excessive force: shooting and paralyzing a Black teen while breaking up a fight. Rashad’s father is haunted by his mistake, and ultimately decides to leave law enforcement, as opposed to Paul Galluzzo who expresses no remorse for how he hurt Rashad. The novel explores many facets of police brutality, showing its prevalence and contentious nature in American society.
Policing of Black lives
The policing of Black lives is a major theme in All American Boys. Police presence is commonplace in Springfield, a now-majority-Black city. Quinn describes how police patrols increased in his neighborhood as more Black people moved in, and how there’s a lookout station around the corner from his house. Spoony and Rashad’s friends all have their own stories of being followed around by police, and of being repeatedly stopped and frisked. It is an unfortunate reality of their lives that they have frequent interactions with police, and in these interactions they are viewed with suspicion. Yet Black characters in the novel are also policed by society. Rashad’s father comments frequently on his sons’ baggy clothes, once telling Spoony that the way he dresses will make people think he’s “selling drugs” and that he needs to dress like a “respectable adult.” His father’s respectability politics try to control what his sons wear and how they act. He does so in an effort to protect them, knowing how society views and stereotypes Black men. Yet, regardless of his motivation, his actions police his sons as he tries to mold their self-expression into something more palatable for white American sensibilities. His judgments are echoed in the national debate surrounding Rashad; strangers pick apart photos of Rashad and extrapolate them to make character assessments.
Political divisions
Political division is a key theme in All American Boys. When Paul savagely beats Rashad, highly contentious questions soon arise that heighten political divisions already present in society. Paul’s family is hyper-sensitive to any perceived critique of him; they blindly support him, and the police force, championing the line that “he was just doing his job.” The police chief says he has the “utmost faith” in Paul’s judgment and, in the broader debate, many agree with him, saying police have hard jobs and need to make tough calls to keep the community safe. On the other side are those who believe in Rashad’s innocence; they question Paul’s judgment, accusing him of being racist and using excessive force. They argue that systemic racism criminalizes the Black community, and that what Rashad went through is part of a pattern. This debate plays out on the news, online, and at school. This division becomes stark after Carlos writes the message “Rashad is absent again today” in graffiti in front of the high school. Half of the students sit outside on the front steps to show their support for Rashad; the students who remain inside are all white. Some of them passively support Paul; others prefer to go about their daily lives, ignoring the debate altogether. Yet, as the authors point out, in choosing silence they are enabling the status quo of violence and racism to continue. Although Coach Carney tries to prohibit anyone on the basketball team from engaging in this debate, all the players are thinking about Rashad and find it impossible, or are unwilling, to follow his orders. Fights break out on the team, both verbal and physical. While they all share a passion for basketball, political divisions threaten to divide the team. Quinn’s choice to take a stand and support Rashad ultimately ends his friendships with Paul and Guzzo, who find the political divide too deep for their friendship to bridge. At the protest, the diverse crowd of thousands leaves the reader with the rare image of unity, suggesting what might be a path towards healing and reconciliation within the community.
Racism
Racism is a central theme explored in the novel, one that goes hand in hand with the question of police brutality. To people of color in the novel, it seems obvious: Rashad was wrongly accused of stealing and attacking a white woman because he’s Black. They understand intuitively that modern-day discrimination has morphed into something different from the more blatant acts of racism of the past. Rashad’s older brother Spoony is the most explicit in his critique of racism in America, pushing others to express their outrage and demand better. Yet, white characters in the novel struggle to acknowledge and talk about race. Ms. Webber is visibly flustered when students even mention Rashad in her class, and Clarissa believes in Rashad but fumbles with her words when talking about what happened to him. Others such as Dwyer, Guzzo, and Quinn’s mom deny racism had anything to do with the attack on Rashad, becoming defensive or just wanting to move on with their lives as if nothing has happened. However, Quinn and Jill actively grapple with racism and their own role in passively accepting it. The novel tracks their journey to political awareness, as they begin to recognize how racism impacts the thoughts and behaviors of those around them. With this realization comes the conviction that they need to stand up against the racism in their community. Jill becomes actively involved in planning the protest, and Quinn begins to speak out in support of Rashad making an official statement to the police and attending the protest. The authors complicate a simple white vs. Black binary. They detail how Rashad’s own father has internalized negative stereotypes about Black youth, he admits that as an officer he was often looking for criminals that looked like his own sons.
Loyalty
By chance Quinn witnesses Paul attack Rashad; this act throws Quinn into the middle of a community debate about what happened. As Quinn navigates this, the question of loyalty comes up again and again. The novel poses the question: how do we respond when someone in our community harms another? At the Galluzzo's barbecue, Paul addresses his family, saying he’ll be able to weather the controversy as long as everyone sticks by him; while saying this, he looks directly at Quinn. Quinn is uncomfortable with the cruelty and ruthlessness he saw in Paul, a man he has looked up to as an older brother. Paul has helped out Quinn and his family after Quinn’s father died, so the pressure to stay loyal to Paul is powerful. When Quinn distances himself from Paul and Guzzo, his actions are seen as an act of betrayal. His mother, Paul, and Guzzo all demand his loyalty: Guzzo criticizes Quinn for not supporting his brother, Paul appeals to Quinn to hear his side of the story, and his mother forbids Quinn from going to the protest. In their eyes, loyalty involves going along with what Paul did, something Quinn cannot stomach. In the novel, appeals for loyalty are also appeals to stay silent on issues of race: ignoring difficult truths and avoiding accountability. Quinn and Jill’s decision to stand up and say Paul acted in the wrong, that he was the aggressor and not Rashad, costs them personal relationships. They display courage in speaking out and demanding better from their loved ones and community.
Perspective
The theme of perspective is explored both in the events depicted in All American Boys and in the novel's style. The major conflict in the novel involves Rashad, a Black teen, getting beaten up by a police officer. Rashad and the police officer’s accounts of events are widely different, but the reader is privy to what truly happened. To the officer, it looked like Rashad was stealing because he was viewing Rashad through a lens of suspicion. Rashad passes the time in the hospital drawing; he chooses to frame all of his drawings in a circle instead of filling up the whole page. When asked by his nurse why, he replies that “the circle changes how you see it. Like, what are we looking through?” This idea echoes the events unfolding in the novel: the different characters' perspectives determine how they view Rashad and the events at the convenience store. This theme arises again with Rashad’s father. Rashad experiences police brutality as the victim, yet when his father reveals that as a police officer he too was guilty of using excessive force, Rashad is forced to consider the opposite perspective—that of an officer. The authors reinforce the theme of perspective by their choice of splitting the narration between the two protagonists, Quinn and Rashad. Each day is narrated twice, once from Rashad’s perspective and once from Quinn's. These two high schoolers never meet in the novel, but their distinct worldviews slowly come closer together, ending with a symbolic moment where they literally see eye-to-eye during the protest.
Father-Son Relationships
Both protagonists in the novel must contend with complex relationships with their fathers. Rashad admits from the beginning that he only joined ROTC to placate his father. His father is strict and domineering, with set ideas about how his sons should behave. His brother Spoony has stopped trying to please their father, who disapproves of how Spoony dresses, his job, and his politics. This leads to tension between their father and Spoony. Rashad is deeply hurt when, after his attack, his father remains skeptical of his son’s innocence. Though the rest of his family and friends openly support Rashad, his father holds back. Eventually, Rashad’s father reveals that he too was guilty of excessive force as a police officer. The news shocks Rashad, who has always respected his father. This rare moment of vulnerability is painful for them both, but for the first time, Rashad thinks that they’ve both taken off their masks and been honest with each other. His father ultimately shows up at the protest, a gesture that conveys his support for his son. Quinn’s father died in combat in Afghanistan. His father is heralded as a hero in Springfield, and Quinn feels pressure to live up to his father’s legacy. He chafes at this expectation, tired of trying to be the perfect “All-American boy.” In his father’s absence, Paul Galluzzo became like an older brother to Quinn: helping him with basketball, checking in on Quinn’s family, and telling Quinn he’ll always be there for him. This is why Quinn has such a hard time coming to terms with the darker side of Paul he saw wielding power and authority over Rashad. Amid all the resistance Quinn faces for supporting Rashad, Quinn has a realization about his father: his father risked everything to stand up for what he believed in. Realizing this, Quinn is able to find strength in his father’s legacy to do what he thinks is right. In the process, he redefines his relationship with his father’s memory.
