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Eyes watching through filtered screens
seeing every lie, reading every made-up word
like a black hoodie counts as a mask
like some shit I do with my fingers
counts as gang signs
like a few fights counts as
uncontrollable rage
like failing three classes
counts as being dumb as fuck
like everything that I am, that I've ever been
counts as being

guilty

(page 6)

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Chiseled bronze
perfectly frozen in time
like some god
stripped of his power
or a fallen angel
cast into this hell

And every lie
they say about me
every stone
they throw at me
is supposed to bounce off
like tiny pellets

Here I have to be bulletproof

(page 16-17)

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And since that night
I haven't heard anyone call me boy like she does
call me little man

Always    man
born full-grown, full-bearded
full of a life not even lived yet
as if
I've never toddled along the sofa
like in the videos on Umi's phone

I've never eaten mashed-up food and
spit up and babbled with a mouth full of pink gums

I've never cried for a teddy bear or
laughed at Elmo on Sesame Street

I've never worn mismatched shoes
and splashed in a puddle

I've never hidden from thunder and fireworks
and angry shouts and gunshots and sirens
as if
I've never been afraid of monsters and
predators and animals and
my own face

(page 26-27)

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There's a stone in my throat
There's a brick on my chest

The stone turns into a mountain
The brick turns into a building

And it feels like a giant, heavy thing
like the whole world
is pressing down on me

(page 40)

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Rage is a deadly feeling, Umi once said        It doesn't move
anything    It just makes you wanna punch a wall or a face It
just sits there, this heavy, dark thing in front of your eyes
making you feel nothing but hunger beating in your empty
belly   So you're forced to face it and open your mouth
wide to swallow it whole, thinking that it will go down
smooth like warm milk    But rage is a thing with
bones and blood and screams that turn into
flames, so you have to chew on it        Take
in all the sharp bitterness that makes your
tongue and mouth and words go numb
You don't even know when it reaches
your throat because it's already there
in your belly   Heavy thing not
moving like a heart stopped

(page 41)

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And it's like water
is slowly rising
from the floor

reaching my feet
climbing up my legs
as if this courtroom

is a sinking ship
but everybody else
with their freedom

can swim up to the
surface for some air
to safe shores

and I'm the only one
with an anchor
tied to my ankles

Heavy metal
pulling me down
until I drown

(page 46-47)

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I want to be like steel, like iron
and I'm hoping
that I'm superhuman

(page 62)

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I overflow
I can't hold it in
I won't hold them in
my rhymes

my words
my truth
are like a tsunami

[...]

Yo shut the fuck up! somebody shouts
But I don't give a fuck

[...]

SHUT THE FUCK UP! somebody else says

No! I shout back
Never
I will not shut the fuck up

(page 90-92)

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They can't kill you in here
but they will try, Umi says
from across the round table

That's the point
Locking you up isn't enough
for them      They will try
to crush your spirit until
you're nothing but--

Dust
we both say together

And what does dust do, Amal?
What did Maya Angelou say about dust?
Umi asks

It rises, I whisper

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 181).

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I learned about this thing
called the butterfly effect--
not in school
but from the guys on the block

It was this one dude
who said that's why we're always making mistakes
because ain't no butterflies in the hood

See, if there were butterflies
we would have what's called
the butterfly effect

A butterfly's wings can
change the path of a storm

Something so small
can change
one big thing in the world
one big thing in the universe

If there are no butterflies here
no pretty little wings flapping in the hood
then we can't change a thing, he said

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 225).

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When it's time to leave
Umi hugs me so hard and for so long
that I think I'll disappear into her arms

She whispers a line
from her favorite song in my ear
And I have to swallow back
that stone in my throat

When I was little
Umi used to blast Nas
her favorite rapper
and say Whose world is this?
and she used to make me sing
It's mine, it's mine, it's mine!

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 248).

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Nas - The World Is Yours (Official HD Video)

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Then she'd play the one with Lauryn Hill
and I'd shout into that musty apartment air
If I ruled the world--
and she'd follow with

I'd free all my sons!

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 249).

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Nas - If I Ruled the World (Imagine That) (Official Audio) ft. Lauryn Hill

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There, outside of my arts high school
the internet was my teacher
and
I discovered
Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden
Faith Ringgold and Kerry James Marshall
Alma Thomas and Norman Lewis

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 356)

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Kadon is with me in the library
and he grabs
a James Baldwin book from my pile

Me and Kadon--
who is quiet, pensive, drained--
start with one book
one page
one word

as if each idea is a link on a chain
that we are breaking
one by one
and two by two

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 373)

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The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (read by Jesse L  Martin) Audio Book

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I spread my paintings out across all the tables

and the Corners make sure that no one
messes with them       Four small paintings

Watercolor on paper

like da Vinci's Mona Lisa--a black mother
sitting still      hands in her lap       with no mouth

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 385)

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He reaches into his bag and pulls out
a stack of books
They can't lock down your mind, Amal--
only if you let them
Your mind is free
Your thoughts are free
Your creativity is free--
...
The first book in his stack is called
The Mis-Education
of the Negro
and it's by Carter G. Woodson

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 371)

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I spread my paintings out across all the tables

and the Corners make sure that no one
messes with them       Four small paintings

Watercolor on paper

Like Picasso's Guernica--butterflies with distorted wings
at war     at war     at war

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 385)

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The next books are by
James Baldwin
Richard Wright
Toni Morrison
Octavia Butler
Ibram X Kendi
Michelle Alexander
and Ta-Nehisi Coates

Next time I come
we'll discuss what you've read--
he says before leaving

and it's the first time Uncle Rashon
has ever hugged me

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 372)

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And even then--
when I'd studied
the Sistine Chapel
and all of Michelangelo's paintings
and dreamed of having my work
in some fancy place
like the Louvre in Paris
and dreamed of painting
the ceiling of a giant mosque
and memorized all the works
of Picasso and Salvador Dali
Rembrandt and Van Gogh
Monet, da Vinci, and Matisse--
my art was wrong, according to her

Even though my subjects were soft and             tender
she didn't think it was my truth

Be honest with yourself, she said

I was
I was being honest
I was telling the truth

No one had ever given me
a whole wall for a canvas
to tell my truth

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 351)

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I spread my paintings out across all the tables

and the Corners make sure that no one
messes with them       Four small paintings

Watercolor on paper

like Dali's Persistence of Memory--a watch
with pretty little wings trapped in its box

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 385)

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Dr. Bennu tells us to
read each word out loud

We bitch and moan
moan and bitch
Nobody wants to
but I do

So we're like slaves?
I ask

Is that what it says?
Dr. Bennu asks

Basically, if we've been
convicted of a crime
we're slaves

(Zoboi & Salaam, 2020, p. 278)

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The central focus of Punching the Air exposes how systemic racism criminalize innocent people, which makes this novel a must read for young people and adults as well to understand the intricacies of the industrial prison complex and see how power and racism are intertwined.
Whether at school or in prison, Amal, the main character of the book, experiences coercion, he is never accepted because he's either too loud, out of line, too wild, too curious, too colorful to fit into a squared rigid system. Amal compares the prison's staff to godly figures that report to the judge, the supreme god. Even though the superintendent of juvenile probation and detention tells Amal "We are here to help you". (p.125), Amal knows one thing for sure is that jail has taken his freedom away and is at work to reduce his soul to dust. Here is a passage that illustrates this loss of identity "There’s a small desk and stool that extends out from the wall and everything in here is attached to a fucking wall and I wonder how long it’ll be before I’m attached to the walls, too” (p.116)

Above I attached a link to Ava DuVernay's inside documentary on The Thirteenth Amendment, highly recommended to understand   its consequential status for convicted individuals.

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Discussing Ava Duvernay's "13th" - Inside The Documentary/BHL's Justice Is Served

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Reading about Amal's tribulations during his time served in prison for a crime he did not commit exposes the profound ramifications of the judicial system has on Black and minorities communities that reminded me of an artwork done by Hank Willis Thomas.
The photo-collage posted above titled "The  Cotton Bowl" might puzzle audiences by its visual juxtaposition of a football player at the line of scrimmage across from a man in straw hat picking cotton. The artist looks at the popular culture of entertainment in a way that deconstructs American commercialism to show how that language reflects and perpetuates historical systems of oppression.
Besides, judicial, and commercial systems of oppression, Amal has been subjected to other punitive structures found in schools where young minorities are reminded to prioritize authority over creative thinking.
"I didn’t check off any of those boxes so clowned all the hallway monitors got suspended for a week and were assigned our own monitors for another week because we were on probation you have to learn to respect authority even if that authority is your peer, should have been called Zero Tolerance Academy No Second chances charter school or prison prep" (p.127)

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These two sections exemplify how creative layout can amplify a message authors mean to convey. Here (pages. 200 & 201) are not randomly separated, their visual composition reveals and emphasizes how racial divide pervades in multiple societal layers as to reflect the way judicial system is structured which Amal calls ironically Blind Justice.

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Amal and his friends have wanted to skate over the other side of their neighborhood that used to be familiar to them once. After, gentrification brought new residences with new people; common ground could not be shared anymore for reasons Amal clearly knows exist even when they seem invisible.
"Can't touch the nice things because everything about us our skin, our faces, our hair, our words, our music will break things will ruin things will make things ugly just by us being there". (196-197)
This passage reminded me of Kara Walker controversial art about stereotypes, she said that "Silhouettes are reduction, and racial stereotypes are also reduction of actual human being".

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Amal's story is based on the Central Park Five case.

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Yusef Salaam, who co-authored Punching the Air with Ibi Zoboi, was one of the five young men convicted of assaulting a women and sentenced between six to twelve years. Later in time, a prison inmate confessed to the crime. When, Ibi Zoboi met Yusef Salaam, she asked him to learn more about the inside parts of incarceration Yusef had to endure and transcended with music, writing, and the continued support of his loving family.

Unlike a memoir, the characters and circumstances' novel were modified partly to create a more relatable account for young people to identify with and see how the ongoing judicial disparities are still viewing young Blacks and minorities in a rather negative light.
In fact, the plot's story reminds us how racism can form out of mundane cliques, teens get together to skate but when the skating grounds become exclusive to one group alone, because outsiders might ruin something, then what? Invisible racial lines arise with tension fueling the vicious cycle of violence which continue feeding the industrial prison complex, mentioned earlier.

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Dr. Yusef Salaam one of the Exonerated Five

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Dr. Yusef Salaam is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from President Barack Obama, among others honors. He is a published poet, a public speaker, and powerful advocate for criminal justice reform, and prison reform activist. The titles Dr. Yusef Salaam earned are not just respectable positions; they are the living proof of relentless hope, noble work, and dignifying qualities Dr. Salaam chose to cultivate over hate, and despair.
Amal, the main character of the book was given a name that means "hope" alluding to the human achievement one can attain in time of adversity. In the darkest moment of Amal's imprisonment, Amal finds light in the most recessed part of his being. As he remembers his father and ancestral origin at the core of his identity, Amal understands his name can bring a new day.
The love of Amal's mother is unshakable, she never fails to believe in him, she knows Amal is innocent, she knows his tremendous potential regardless of what society has tried to minimize. She tells him no matter how tall he grows, no matter how deep the bass in his voice, no matter growing into a man, into an elder, an ancestor, he belongs to life itself, he is life itself. What unconditional love's power can do for a human being, it reclaims its own reason for living, gives it a sense of purpose to accomplish the unthinkable.

More manifestation of love find its way in Amal' reduced space with Zenobia, one of his classmates he had wanted to know better. She sends letters to Amal telling him that she remembers him, that she loves his art, that she is here to listen if Amal would ever wanted to talk about his time in prison.
These authentic connections remind Amal of his humanity, that not everything is lost yet, as long as he remembers that his voice, his existence still matters, there is hope. His drawings can translate his thoughts and let them float as if they could turn into butterfly wings to change into new ideas, new existence.
Amal's ability to create with words, images, allows him to move away from negative stream of thoughts, freeing mind space to transcend his present reality. In this state, Amal realizes the power he has over the circumstances of his life, an awareness that no one can take away nor destroy.