This Is My America

Jamal Beaumont is Tracy’s older brother, and wrongfully accused of murdering his love interest, Angela Herron. As a result, Jamal is in hiding for most of the text. Jamal symbolizes how the media and criminal justice system unfairly treat and represent Black men. The Susan Touric Show twice features Jamal. In his first on-air appearance, Susan Touric interviews him about his track prowess and the important role he plays in his family, especially since his father’s incarceration. Jamal is devoted to his family—he leaves notes for Corinne in her lunch box and chooses a college closer to home because “the thing that matters is putting in work to help take care of my family” (15). Touric is impressed with his dedication, but the minute Jamal is suspected of harming Angela, the news coverage shifts focus. Now, an unflattering photo of Jamal flashes on the screen, the word “suspect” written under the photo: “They’ve got Jamal painted like a thug, standing between two other Black team members [...] the other white teammates conveniently cropped out of the original photo. All Jamal was doing was being a teenager at a party” (87). He has gone from track star to thug during one television program, which Tracy notes is easy to do because of cultural bias against Black men.

Jamal has a deep understanding of the racism that has shaped the Black experience in America since its inception. When Tracy finds Jamal where he has been hiding, he makes a powerful statement explaining why he feels the need to hide: "We built America. Black labor built the greatest nation in the world for free. They ripped us from our family then, and they do it again with new laws disguised as change. I’ll be in prison doing that labor for free” (298). In this single statement, Jamal traces the through line from the origins of chattel slavery in America to the present day, in which Black men are incarcerated at disproportionately higher rates due to laws that unfairly target them. Like the ancestors he invokes, Jamal too is ripped from his family for much of the text, because he fears for his life if he (innocent though he may be) turns himself over to a system that was designed to incarcerate him.

Quincy Ridges is a childhood friend of Tracy and Jamal. Throughout the text, Quincy is a steadfast friend and source of support for Tracy, oftentimes trying to encourage her to exercise caution in her investigation to preserve her safety. Quincy has experienced firsthand the effects of police brutality—he lost his father to a police shooting and carries a lifelong leg injury because of that shooting. Quincy understands that he cannot tell Tracy to not pursue justice for Jamal and uncover the truth of Angela’s murder, and so he helps her in the ways he can, such as giving Tracy the burner phone to contact Jamal and going to the Pike with her to try to recover the gun that killed Angela.

Tracy and Quincy develop a romantic relationship, which evolves despite the distance that grew between them after the shooting. Tracy feels torn between Dean and Quincy for much of the text, but ultimately chooses Quincy after the revelations of Dean’s ancestral connections to the KKK: “I feel us melding back together. Becoming stronger. Becoming something bigger together than apart [...] We need time to let our lives fall back in place. There’s one thing I know now: I won’t let anything pull us apart again” (325). Tracy makes the decision to be with Quincy completely. Their shared history has created a strong foundation upon which to build their relationship, and the distance that grew between them only solidifies their bond because of Tracy’s determination not to let anything come between them again.

Although the text has an underlying distrust of police and law enforcement, Johnson includes Beverly Ridges as a character to represent people, especially Black people, who might turn to a career in law enforcement to change the system from the inside. Beverly states: “I’m not doing this with you right now, Quincy. I know you don’t like it, but I’m trying to do better. Be better. Change things my way” (353). Beverly is a complex character in that, for most of the text, her loyalties are in conflict. She loves Jamal like a sibling, and yet she feels the need to try to convince him to turn himself in to the authorities.

The actions of law enforcement have irreversibly shaped her life, and yet her conviction to her job is “because of what happened to my dad. He wouldn’t want fear to control me” (353). She tests this fear when at the end of the text Beverly is shot while defending Jamal. Though she is not critically injured, her actions prove that she is on the side of justice; her positionality as a cop has not compromised her ability to act in the best interest of the Black community. Beverly emerges at the end as a hero: “We’d given Beverly a hard time about trusting the law, but we were mistaken: she is what the law was always supposed to be” (374). Thus, the stance towards law enforcement at the end of the text is that it is possible for the law to be just and right, so long as there are people like Beverly working within the system.

In the Author’s Note, Johnson states: “I based my character Steve Jones on Bryan Stevenson, and the fictional Innocence X on the incredible organizations Equal Justice Initiative and the Innocence Project” (393). Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer and law professor at the New York University School of Law, and the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. The missions of Innocence X and the Equal Justice Initiative are aligned. As Tracy states on The Susan Touric Show: “They represent people wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. Especially those in underserved communities. People who can’t afford their bail, let alone an attorney with a team of expert witnesses to prove their client’s innocence” (17). Tracy has come to realize in her family’s experience that the justice system does not always function equally, especially when it comes to defendants of color, or of lower economic status.

As Tracy states of her family’s experience: “The system has failed us. Continues to fail us” (17). Thus, when Steve Jones, son of Innocence X founder Stephen Jones, Esq., comes to town to take on Daddy’s case, he acts as a beacon of hope for Daddy’s exoneration and escape from death row. Beyond his commitment to the Beaumonts from a legal perspective, Steve proves that he is committed to them as people, too. He tries to get to know the Beaumonts on a personal level, staying the night after the racist attack and making breakfast in the morning. In trying to help Jamal come out of hiding, he states, “I will do everything I can do to protect your family” (347). Steve proves this at the end of the text with Daddy’s release, and Tracy in a final letter addressed to Innocence X shows that she and Steve have an ongoing friendship that extended beyond the end of Daddy’s trial.

Dean represents many white Americans who recognize overtly racist beliefs and actions and have begun to recognize that white supremacy and bias shape their thoughts. Yet, Dean, a well-meaning white man, still harbors implicit biases rooted in white supremacy and racism. Dean exhibits this bias when he admits to believing, initially, that Jamal must be guilty upon learning that he was at the scene of Angela’s murder: “I went to the police station because I was worried what Jamal being guilty would do to you. Not…not because I thought Jamal was innocent” (217). Tracy immediately recognizes this reaction in Dean as being rooted in racist belief systems that are quick to judge a person of color instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt. Despite Dean’s close friendship with Jamal and Tracy, his own ingrained beliefs supersede what he knows to be true about Jamal’s character.

Tracy and Dean try and fail to explore the romantic potential between them, which after revelations of Dean’s white supremacist ancestry, become an impossible impasse. While the potential of Tracy and Dean’s romantic relationship is no longer an option at the end of the text, Dean does prove himself as someone Tracy can depend on. Tracy sees him at her father’s appeal hearing: “Dean catches my eye and he mouths, You got this. I smile. Our friendship took a hit, but we’re strong. Something in me knows it will be able to survive” (380). Their friendship represents the idea that people of different backgrounds and life experiences can maintain strong bonds provided they are open to listening to one another and moving past the inevitable harm that they will encounter. The narrative does not absolve Dean of his family’s past—the death of their romantic relationship proves this—but Dean, the descendant of a Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, and Tracy, the descendant of enslaved people, can form a friendship of mutual respect and understanding.