This Is My America

“Seems to me it’s harder to adjust to life when you’re innocent. Because you think you’re losing your mind trying to prove the truth. But when you’re guilty, you accept it. Not happy about it, but there’s time to learn. Rehabilitation.”

In a letter to Innocence X, Tracy reflects on the challenges faced by incarcerated people like her father, who is on death row for a crime he did not commit. This quote highlights Tracy’s belief that rehabilitation is possible for those who are in prison for a crime that they did commit, but for those who are incarcerated and innocent, their focus becomes solely on proving their innocence, which takes a higher mental toll.

“It’s always been my fear of what the world was telling me more than what I’ve felt about Dean. It’s hard to believe we’d be right for each other, when everywhere I look is a hidden reminder. Magazines, television, everyday micro-aggressions. Beaten down with the backhanded compliments I’ve heard all my life, like ‘You real pretty for a dark-skinned girl.’”

For much of the text, Tracy struggles to resolve her romantic feelings for Dean. This quote reveals the extent to which racist societal messaging affects the way Tracy feels about Dean, and whether their interracial relationship would even be viable. For Tracy, this quote also illustrates the negative messaging she has internalized from casual racism in society, such as a lack of representation in the media, or that she is pretty by standards that favor whiteness.

“…the word boy keeps running in my head. A bitter taste flushes in my mouth, the way that word drawls out like just another slur in coded language.”

When looking for Jamal after Angela’s murder, Officer Clyde refers to him as “boy,” which has historically racist connotations when used in reference to Black men. This quote alludes to how racist beliefs are “coded” into American culture, and how language has an impact regardless of intent.

“But when you lose someone, and an entire town thinks your spouses were guilty, it does something to your friendship. Being close reminds you what’s missing.”

Tracy reflects on the distance that grew between the Ridges and Beaumont families in the aftermath of Jackson’s murder and James’s conviction. Although the families were close before, after the tragedy that tore their families apart the families could no longer maintain a close friendship because of the reminders of what they lost. This quote demonstrates the far-reaching implications that wrongful accusations and convictions can have on families beyond the individuals directly impacted.

“Think if I didn’t get shot, I’d be your ride-or-die and not Dean?”

Quincy asks Tracy if their relationship would have been different were it not for the tragedy that tore their families apart. In the aftermath of her father’s conviction, Tracy became close friends with Dean and pulled away from Quincy. Now, in her pursuit of justice for her father, she feels herself drawing closer once more towards Quincy precisely because of their shared histories. Quincy’s question references the spark between the two along with their intertwined backgrounds.

“I let myself think about the future for a moment, then pause. The urgency of here and now brings me back down.”

This quote emphasizes the impact that Tracy’s focus on time has on her life. She frequently states that she cannot afford to think about the future, because as each day passes it means one day closer to her father’s execution date. The future is not full of promise or excitement for Tracy so long as her father remains behind bars on death row.

“They do, but I’m teaching you how to survive. Don’t try and reason. It ain’t fair, but a gun on you isn’t the time to debate.”

During her Know Your Rights Training, Tracy cautions her mostly Black male audience in de-escalation tactics should they ever encounter law enforcement. One of the men asks why police officers are not responsible for keeping themselves calm, leaving the burden of responsibility on the person being arrested. Tracy illuminates the difficult reality of tensions between police and Black people, and the implicit bias and racism that so often creates unsafe and even deadly situations for Black men at the hands of police.

“When I watch the news, I can tell you without even looking at the TV if the suspect is white or Black. A ‘young man who lost his way’ or ‘was afflicted with mental illness’ but ‘had a promising future’ = white. A ‘thug’ with ‘trouble in school’ = Black.”

Tracy deconstructs the methods that newscasts new when discussing the racist descriptions of perpetrators of crimes. While the media gives white male perpetrators the benefit of the doubt or their actions excused due to mental illness, Black perpetrators receive no such treatment. The assumptions about a Black male will be that he is troubled, an underachiever, or a thug, which serve to dehumanize the person in question and display the racism upheld by media.

“You have to stop looking around. Angela is dead because of those photos from the Pike.”

Mandy Peters, Angela’s best friend, warns Tracy of getting too involved in her investigation of the goings on at the Pike. The photos in question reveal that white supremacy is alive and well in their community in the form of a hate group, and that people will go to great lengths to preserve and protect whiteness, even if it means murder.

“It started a debate in history class when white kids asked why it’s not racist to say Black Lives Matter but a problem to say White Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter. What they don’t get is that those lives have always mattered. Ours are treated like we’re less than equal. Like we don’t deserve the same respect.”

This quote is another example of the real-world parallels embedded in the text. The exact debate that Tracy describes plays itself out in various settings across America. What statements like “White Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” show is a fundamental misunderstanding (of primarily white Americans) as to the depths of racism in America. Tracy articulates this in saying that there has never been any cultural question as to whether white and “blue” (an allusion to police) lives matter, while by police brutality, inequitable access to healthcare and generational wealth cut Black lives short.

This quote is another example of the real-world parallels embedded in the text. The exact debate that Tracy describes plays itself out in various settings across America. What statements like “White Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” show is a fundamental misunderstanding (of primarily white Americans) as to the depths of racism in America. Tracy articulates this in saying that there has never been any cultural question as to whether white and “blue” (an allusion to police) lives matter, while by police brutality, inequitable access to healthcare and generational wealth cut Black lives short.

This quote alludes to real-world events that illustrate the way police brutality harms Black bodies. Examples like the murder of Trayvon Martin, murdered while walking home from a convenience store after purchasing a bag of Skittles, and white perpetrators of mass violence such as Dylann Roof, taken in by police without incident after murdering nine people at a church in South Carolina. This jarring contrast in the way white people and Black people are treated differently by law enforcement is explored in the text in the way Jamal’s guilt is assumed by police simply because of his presence at the Pike the night of Angela’s murder, while Chris Brighton (who is white) is protected by his race and connections to law enforcement.

“I peek in the white SUV’s window. Taped to the top of the box is a sign, a drawing of a white, straight couple holding a baby. The words at the top: Don’t let white guilt control you. Join together and honor our heritage.”

Tracy reads the recruitment pamphlet inside of Richard Brighton’s car. The slogan on the pamphlet as well as the illustration reveal the anxieties latent in the white supremacist organization, Liberty Heritage for a New America, about replacement theory and white guilt. The pamphlet features a heteronormative couple who have produced an offspring, a central tenet of the “family values” often cited by far-right organizations. Beneath this veneer of the nuclear family, however, are insidious implications about “white guilt.” Far-right circles often use this rhetoric to explain the reasons why white people should not be in support of antiracism or equity efforts. Instead of acknowledging the role that white people play in perpetuating racism on a systemic and interpersonal level, the pamphlet reduces racist belief systems to “guilt” and “heritage.”

“I cry out at the tall burning cross in our front yard. The fire is blazing; I look away. Shut my eyes, but the image of the cross stays even in the darkness.”

The image of the burning cross, a symbol of the KKK, burns into Tracy’s mind. Beyond its disturbing appearance, the implications it represents are far more dire and remain imprinted on Tracy’s mind and emotions. The burning cross is a direct threat. The “Brotherhood,” who erected the cross, meant to communicate a message of bodily harm and intimidation to the Beaumonts.

“I wish I could trust them automatically, but I can’t. History has a way of latching on to you. Like touching a hot stove—you only need to do it once before you know better.”

Tracy reflects on her reasons for not trusting the cops, and how her personal trauma and history with police and law enforcement inform these feelings of distrust. Tracy’s feelings of mistrust echo in many communities of color, which are disproportionately targeted and represented in the criminal justice system. Like her stove metaphor, the police harmed Tracy’s family in the past because of their corrupt behavior, which led to Mr. Ridges’s murder and Daddy’s imprisonment. Beyond her personal experience, Tracy understands the long history of tension between Black people and law enforcement in America, which goes all the way back to the early post-slavery days when the police system was created to arrest Black people who escaped enslavement, or to over-arrest Black people for minor infractions in the days of Jim Crow.

“With each day he’s farther and farther away—never more so than last night, when our sense of safety was stripped away by the sound of shattering glass, the flash of bright orange, and the flames waving among the shadows of a cross.”

Although Tracy wishes Jamal would come home, she shows that she understands his reasons for hiding. The attack on the Beaumont’s home was not only disturbing because of its racist implications, but for its real threat of bodily harm towards the Beaumonts. The attack compromised the Beaumont’s home, and therefore their sense of safety was as well. Racism showed up at their door, so to speak, and demanded that they not feel safe in their own space.

“And after, we didn’t have a church home anymore. Not the same, anyway. After the sentencing, we were pushed to the margins. Whispered about. It took a long time to grab that place again for Mama. I never fully did. Not again. Not the same.”

Tracy explains the fallout from her father’s wrongful conviction and its implications for their role in their community. Even within the Black community of their church, the Beaumonts felt marginalized because of Daddy’s incarceration. This informed Tracy’s need to distance herself from religion altogether, as the members of her church failed to treat the Beaumonts with the understanding one would expect from a Christian community.

“I’ve never heard my dad say one racist thing in my life. Hell, he voted for Obama. Klan wouldn’t do that, would they?”

Dean tries to process the disturbing revelation that his family has ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Unfortunately, this quote illustrates Dean’s overall lack of understanding when it comes to the nuances of race. Saying that his dad “voted for Obama” to try to absolve him of any wrongdoing or racism is representative of a particular kind of white person’s way of trying to distance themselves from overt examples of racism. A statement like this is akin to a white person saying that they cannot be racist because they “have a Black friend.” There is a dark humor to this quote as a result that characterizes Dean as a well-meaning white person who is nevertheless ignorant.

“I think about something Mr. Evans said to Officer Clyde. How this shouldn’t be happening in our town. That’s what he was thinking. That it died out with the previous generation. I’m sure the town doesn’t want to raise skeletons of the past. Even though it’s been lingering at the Pike—infecting the next generation.”

This quote is another example of how the legacy of racism affects subsequent generations. Mr. Evans states that this kind of overt racism should not exist anymore, and that it has “died out.” This suggests that there was no immediate anti-racist action or community reckoning done to repair the harms of the past. Instead of racism “dying out,” Tracy sees it as having gone dormant, or shifting into more subtle forms, so that it could continue to thrive and exist by more covert means. Because the town refused to reckon with the skeletons of its past, quite literally in the case of the murder of Minh Nguyen, no true healing could have possibly happened, and as a result, racism continued to find ways to infiltrate the minds of white community members, who found new ways to ensure that racist beliefs carried on. These beliefs manifest in the creation of far-right groups such as Liberty Heritage for a New America, which exist in the open as a pro-American or patriotic group, but whose roots tie to white nationalist and white supremacist belief systems of the past, just repackaged in a new and more palatable form.

“They got away with murder. I count sixteen people who witnessed his death and never said a word. People who can keep a secret like this are capable of anything.”

Tracy looks at the photograph portraying the murder of Minh Nguyen. Tracy expresses her disgust with the people in the photograph because their inaction suggests the lengths to which the community and the criminal justice system will collude to preserve white supremacy in their community.

“I study Dean’s mom. Whatever she’s been through has been ingrained in her since she was a kid. Her father left imprints of his beliefs on her. How much she’s held onto is a mystery. Still, it’s a choice.”

This quote supports the theme of the cycle of racism in America and how racism persists because is passes through generations. It is no secret that Mrs. Evans harbors some deeply ingrained racist beliefs, and yet it is unclear the extent to which her father’s beliefs have influenced her own. Mrs. Evans admits to feeling disturbed by the murder of Minh Nguyen, and yet her inaction (in part fueled by internalized racism) caused immeasurable harm to the Ridges and Beaumont families. The narrative refuses to absolve Mrs. Evans of her inaction, stating that even if she has not fully internalized the racist beliefs of her father, her inaction remains “a choice” with far-reaching implications.

“If I accused Richard directly, he’d hurt me, threaten to disclose things about my father.”

Mrs. Evans attempts to rationalize her reasons for not pushing police to take a closer look at Richard Brighton as a potential suspect in the Davidsons’ murders. Mrs. Evans, the daughter of a Grand Wizard of the Galveston KKK, was worried that Brighton would come after her or reveal information about her connections to the hate group. These reasons are woefully inadequate when juxtaposed with the consequences of her inaction: the murder of Jackson Ridges, the wrongful incarceration of James Beaumont, and the murder of Angela Herron.

“This time we’re not leaving without justice. You can smell it in the air. This time will be different.”

Tracy walks with confidence into her father’s appeal hearing. This hearing is happening because of the tireless advocacy Tracy has performed in the seven years since her father’s incarceration. With the help of Innocence X, Tracy feels that there is no way that her father won’t be released, especially with the evidence that has come to light which reveals the extent of police corruption that originally shaped the outcome of the case.

“It’s over. The clock has stopped. We can stop living our life counting the days, counting the time between Saturday and Monday visits.”

This is the culmination of the symbol of time. The clock that has been running in Tracy’s mind for seven years, counting down the days until Daddy’s execution, can finally cease ticking. The Beaumonts, reunited, will no longer have to experience the liminality of having a member of their family incarcerated. They have been living in a sort of suspended reality for the past seven years, trying to re-acclimate to a life that is anything but regular, while trying to keep Daddy’s hope and spirits buoyed. There is a sense of immense relief and release in this quote, illustrating how far-reaching the implications of Daddy’s release is for the family.