I put off reviewing this novel because, I admit it, it hurt like hell thinking about it. I have no shame in saying to all of you fellow readers that I’ve cried more with this novel than I have in the past couple years combined. So yeah, this is your warning to grab your tissues before diving into it.
“Anger is a gift” follows black, gay teenager Moss as he tries to survive being black in America. Moss has already lost his father to police brutality, and has been suffering from panic attacks ever since. It doesn’t help that people who recognise him make him feel more nervous than grateful. On an undescriptive subway ride, Moss meets Javier, a boy he takes a liking to. However, Moss’ high school life is getting worse, as he and his classmates are being targeted by officers while attending classes.
This is not an easy book to read, by any means. It is full of sorrow, anger and injustice that you just want to scoop everyone up and protect them from a system that is working way to well to erase black people’s existence. I might sound harsh, but it is the plain truth. Moss and his friends at school have now to deal with metal detectors and random locker searches that paint them as potential criminals, all because of the neighbourhood they live and go to school in, and their skin colour. Even Moss’s best friend struggles to understand his troubles, because she is lucky (read: privileged) enough to attend a school in a different district. To everyone, but especially non-Americans, this novel is also an analysis on the treatment some schools get because of their location and their population, as well as the ubiquitous presence of police in these buildings. Additionally, during the main, tragic protest, we see advanced technology being used to harm literal teenagers. I was more than shocked to read it, but if last summer’s protests have taught us anything, is that police’s violence always finds a way. I was also reminded of this when Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tweeted about a new robotic dog in action in NYC: “Please ask yourself: when was the last time you saw next-generation, world class technology for education, healthcare, housing, etc consistently prioritized for underserving communities like this?” and she was right. Oshiro’s novel is about police brutality, but not only that. It is a dive into the usage of cutting edge technology to harm peaople. It is exactly what people mean when they demand police funds to be better distributed to communities who need it like air.
Oshiro breaks the audience’s hearts even deeper by hitting us with trauma after trauma, and then peppering in some extra tragedy. We witness trans and disabled kids being mistreated, we see Moss’s boyfriend die in front of him and we see how, once more, police is not held accountable for the harm and pain it causes. Javier’s loss was a tragic, unnecessary one, like thousands of others. We, as the audience, do not expect it and neither does Moss. Much is spent on the loss of possibilities and opportunities; Javier hasn’t had the chance to do so many things he wanted to, and Moss mourns the future they will never have the chance to discover. The people around Moss are well written and useful to the main plot, we understand how these personalities and different individuals fit into a standardized, dangerous society and how much joy they bring into it.
Anger is a gift. Remember that.” She stood. “You gotta grasp onto it, hold it tight and use it as ammunition. You use that anger to get things done instead of just stewing in it.
LitForQueers 