Oakland, California, is a city of more than 400,000 people, but it can still feel like a small town. Not small geographically, of course. The city sprawls across seventy-eight square miles, stretching from the shallow, salty estuary at the edge of San Francisco Bay to the undulating green and gold hills where bobcats and coyotes roam. What makes it feel small is the web of connections, the way people's stories tangle together. Our lives make footprints, tracks in the snows of time. People know each other's parents or siblings, their aunties and cousins. They go to school together, or worship together. They play sports on the same team, or work in the same building. The tracks cross. The stories overlap.
The narrator describes Oakland, explaining how two kids that seem to have nothing in common at all are still riding the same bus home from school. Richard is working-class, black, and from an entirely different side of town than Sasha, who goes to private school and leads a relatively sheltered existence with intellectual parents. There is really no reason for Sasha and Richard to cross paths; they do not even really cross paths on the bus—Sasha, naps at the back of the bus alone, while Richard goofs off with friends further towards the front. In many cities, their paths would not have crossed, but the nature of Oakland is such that they have daily contact with each other, purely based on their individual routes home from school.
"I am not a thug, gangster, hoodlum, nor monster. I'm a young African American male who’s made a terrible mistake. Not only did I hurt you but I hurt your family & friends and also my family & friends for I have brought shame to them and our country and I shall be punished which is going to be hard for me because I’m not made to be incarcerated."
In his letter to Sasha, Richard takes responsibility for his actions and offers what Karl, Debbie, and Sasha will eventually see as genuine remorse for his actions.
He also realizes that those who do not know him may judge him by his actions. He knows he will be punished, but he is not a person who is used to being around hardened criminals or away from his family, so prison will be even more difficult for him than for the average gangster or criminal he will be incarcerated alongside, especially if he's charged as an adult.
Discovering the existence of genderqueer identity felt like discovering a secret room. All this time there have been just two rooms; male and female. Now it turned out that there was another room—one that could be furnished however you wanted.
This quote attaches figurative language to Sasha's journey and search for a fitting gender identity. For most of Sasha's life, there have been two options as far as gender is concerned, and these options required actions, modes of dress and acceptable behaviors for each gender. Sasha does not feel comfortable with either option, but for years has had no alternative. When they discover the concept of genderqueerness, Sasha finds a gender classification that actually feels comfortable and that can be tailored to their exact specifications and preferences, and is fluid to whatever changes they feel are necessary to their ongoing comfort.
"Never let your obstacles become more important than your goal."
This is the "family motto" as described by Kaprice when she lets Richard into her counseling program. The "goal" in this case is to graduate from high school. The "obstacles" can range from home problems, peer pressue, and other obligations. But Kaprice assures Richard that she will be tough on him and make sure that he sticks to his goal.
"You sound so stupid right now. ... You know what’s going to happen? They’re going to kill me. And I do not want to have a baby out here without a dad. I don’t want that for you and I don’t want that for my child. There will be enough of those kids out there. You can take those ones in."
Kaprice recalls when Lil' Jerry encourages her to go to school and use her education to distance herself from gang life. Kaprice tells him that she wants him to get her pregnant so they can start a family, but he tells her he thinks that's a stupid idea and predicts that he won't live long enough to help raise the child.
"[The criminal justice system is] a great mill which, somehow or other, supplies its own grist, a maelstrom which draws from the outside, and then keeps its victims moving in a circle until swallowed in the vortex."
An early reformer of juvenile justice in the US, Altgeld describes the way the system creates repeat offenders instead of focusing on rehabilitation. Altgeld's quote describes how the pattern of incarceration perpetuated by the way laws are enforced is actually a detriment to society, and not a tool for protecting it.
"A super-predator is a young juvenile criminal who is so impulsive, so remorseless, that he can kill, rape, maim without giving it a second thought."
Dilulio's statement is characteristic of a reactionary period in the '80s and '90s where a surge of violent and drug-related crimes in cities resulted in a wave of conservative policies that allow District Attorneys to charge minors as adults at their own discretion.
“What he did was a terrible thing,” Jasmine said after Richard was charged. “I’m not trying to defend his actions because it was very terrible.” Even so, she said, Richard was a kid, a kid who was capable of making an exceedingly dumb mistake, but one who was also capable of learning from it.
This comment by Jasmine comes before Slater introduces the concept of restorative justice, but it operates on the same basis that Richard, the offender, could stand to actually learn something from his crime, and an understanding could be reached between him and the victim, Sasha.
I know he hurt me. He did something that’s really dangerous and stupid. But then again, he’s a sixteen-year-old kid and sixteen-year-old kids are kind of dumb. It’s really hard to know what I want for him.
This quote from Sasha demonstrates the complexity of the issue of Richard's sentencing. It also shows the breadth of Sasha's compassion and understanding. Even after spending three weeks in the hospital and even more time in recovery, Sasha is open to the idea that Richard is just a sixteen-year-old kid who had a major lapse in judgment.
“To forgive, you have to forget,” he counseled. “Because otherwise you haven’t truly forgiven.”
Richard says this during a conversation with his mom, Jasmine. He tells her that he saw the kid who robbed him at gunpoint in the same juvenile housing block as him, and the kid apologized to him Richard accepts his apology because he knows what it's like to cause someone pain for no reason. Jasmine says it's good to forgive, just don't forget, and this is Richard's response. This response demonstrates the growth and maturity Richard experiences in the process of being incarcerated and reflecting on his actions.
