85 pages • 2 hours read
Jewell Parker RhodesBlack Brother, Black Brother
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Background
Socio-Historical Context: Racial Injustice in Today’s Society
Black Brother, Black Brother was published the same year that a police officer murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The topic of violence that Black men experience is significant throughout the novel. The main character, Donte Ellison, is a young Black man stereotyped as a criminal and troublemaker. He realizes that these stereotypes, can have negative—if not fatal—effects.
For example, when Donte is suspended, his mother says: "This is how it starts. Bias. Racism. Plain and simple. Philadelphia, cops called on Black men meeting in Starbucks. Portland, cops called on a hotel guest talking on his cell phone with his mother” (24). These references to real life events show how Donte’s parents have had to explain the dangers that Donte faces as a Black man. While it is a middle grade novel, the racism that Donte and other characters experience because of their visible Blackness speak to the real-life experiences of people of color.
Parker Rhodes draws attention to how Black students are often more harshly penalized than their white peers. According to the American Psychological Association, 26% of Black students received a suspension for a minor issue while only 2% of white students did. These issues included violating dress code, language, or cell phone use during class. This ultimately has detrimental effects on students’ performance in schools and mental health. This is evident in the way that Donte feels so alone: “I lower my eyes first. I hate how Alan—the whole school—makes me doubt me” (40).
Denise, Donte’s mother, wants to file a civil action suit on behalf of Donte and other students of color. This draws attention to the ways in which schools and teachers can create hostile environments, perpetuating a system of racism, even as they pretend that race is not a factor in their decisions to mete out punishment.
Authorial Context: Jewell Parker Rhodes’s Treatment of Historical and Systemic Racism
Jewell Parker Rhodes has centered many of her novels around Black children. In her novel Ghost Boys, she addresses similar themes of systemic racism and the violence levied toward Black boys and men. In Ghost Boys, the novel’s protagonist, Jerome, is killed by a police officer who believed that he was holding a gun when, in fact, it was a toy. Jerome meets the historical figure Emmett Till, who was lynched in 1955 by white men after they assumed he was flirting with a white woman. The white men were never charged. Similarly, Black Brother, Black Brother shows the harsh and unjust treatment of Black men whose lives are threatened by white people and the stereotypes they hold.
In the novel’s Afterword, Parker Rhodes writes that she learned about the higher rates of punishment for Black students while researching Ghost Boys. She adds that, like Donte’s parents, she has one lighter-skinned and one darker-skinned child, and that they “have had very different experiences growing up in America” (236). She believes that “[e]nding racism […] is a battle that can be won” (237). Her novels draw attention to the historical and systemic racism in society, speaking to the real-life experiences of Black children.
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