When They Call You a Terrorist summary

Since its earliest beginnings, the United States has billed itself as a land of opportunity. Unfortunately, as the author learned for herself, educational opportunities are sorely lacking for many African American children.

In general, Black children are not given the same chance to flourish as white children.

We’ve all heard of the American dream – if you work hard in the land of opportunity, you will be rewarded with wealth and prosperity. But have you ever stopped to think about the flip side of this ethos? If successful Americans are hardworking and deserving, does that mean that the poor are failures who deserve their lot? The author doesn’t think so. In fact, she believes that society – not the poor – is often to blame and that it often forces people to live impoverished or chaotic lives.

During her childhood, the author’s stepfather, Alton, walked out on her mother and siblings. While many people would be quick to blame Alton for deserting his family, the author believes that economic and societal forces were also responsible.

When we think of the United States, many of us think of hamburgers, Hollywood and popular culture. Yet there’s something else that arguably defines America: prisons. Astonishingly, though the United States contains only 5 percent of the world’s population, it is home to a staggering 25 percent of its prison population. Indeed, from the experiences of her own family, the author learned about America’s love affair with incarceration.

By the time the author was 16 years old, both her older brother and her father were in jail. Was prison the right place for these men? The author believes it wasn’t.

Everyone has defining moments in their life that change them forever. For most of us, those moments are fairly predictable, such as the birth of a child or the death of a parent. For the author, though, the moments that changed her life were more extreme.

One major turning point in the author’s life was when, at the age of 23, she was forced to fight for her brother Monte’s freedom. Throughout his life, Monte had battled mental illness, both inside and outside of prison. After serving around five years in jail, Monte was released, and his family struggled to look after him. Tragically, Monte had further mental breakdowns, and during one of these episodes, he shouted angrily at a white woman. Despite the fact that Monte was mentally ill, and even though he had not physically harmed the woman, Monte was charged with terrorism. Shockingly, these charges meant that Monte was now facing life imprisonment. Why? Because of a controversial California law, which states that once a person commits three felonies, the state is free to lock him up for the rest of his life.

When you see a police car driving down the street you’re walking on, how does its presence make you feel? For white Americans, the police are either a reassuring or an unremarkable presence. For the author and many Black Americans, however, the sight of the police invokes another feeling: fear for life and limb. The Black Lives Matter movement wants to challenge this environment of fear – but it wants to do it in an inclusive manner.

Although Black Lives Matter began in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for Trayvon Martin’s murder, the movement quickly became focused on the wide-reaching goal of ending police violence against Black people. It's a disturbing fact that Black people are five times more likely than white people to be killed by California police. In California, where the author is from, a police officer kills a person every 72 hours on average. Shockingly, 63 percent of these people are either Black or Latino.