What are 3 key scenes that help demonstrate the theme of the book?

The Relationship between Past and Present

One of the ways the author develops both the above themes is to draw and/or explore parallels between experiences of black people – and again, specifically young black men – in the present with experiences, and the attitudes that triggered them, in the past. As noted above, he draws upon both the recent past (since 2012), upon what might be described as the “middle” past (the civil rights movement in the 1960’s, his own coming-of-age experiences at Howard University in the 1980’s), and what might, in its turn, be described as the “historical” past. In this particular case, this term can be seen as referring to the time of the American Civil War (the mid-1860’s) which, the author says, resulted from the same sorts of economically and socially defined attitudes towards “the black body” as define contemporary, racially-defined violence.

As he considers and evaluates the various types of suffering and exploitation undergone by black people over centuries of black life in America, the author again employs the technique of juxtaposition. To be specific, he juxtaposes how slaves were treated / viewed before, during, and after the Civil War with the more recent, exploitive, status-quo preserving deaths of young black men. He also juxtaposes how black people found inspiration towards freedom and celebration in the words and actions of Malcolm X, a black civil rights activist in America almost exactly a century after the Civil War, with more personal and intimate acts of parent-to-child inspiration in the present. Across time, over decades and even centuries (as well as throughout the narrative), violence and hope, a cultural capacity for exploitation and possibilities for positive transformation are juxtaposed with each other over decades, even centuries, providing both warning and inspiration in the present.