dear martin

The novel’s plot is entirely in service of Justyce’s growth as a character, particularly his journey from his first political awakening to a fuller self-understanding. The first scene shows that political awakening, when his confrontation with the police teaches Justyce that no matter his personality or his accomplishments, society and the law will judge him a criminal just as they judge every other young black man. This encounter sets up the novel’s structure. Each subsequent event or letter to Martin Luther King Jr. will present Justyce with a different issue to confront, or a different lens through which to examine his struggle.

The Halloween Party, for example, provides Justyce with an opportunity to juxtapose two distasteful identities: an identity where his blackness is accepted, but only as a member of a violent gang; or an identity where his blackness is continually thrown in his face as a joke or an insult by his white and privileged peers. This incident has few ramifications in the plot; although the photo of Justyce later surfaces in the media as proof of criminal activity, that exposure comes to nothing and does not significantly affect the trial. The primary purpose of this party scene is to show Justyce’s reaction to the idea that all his possible futures are unattractive: he does not want the specific black identity that the world is willing to offer him, but he does not want to try to ignore his blackness the way Manny does in order to stay friends with disrespectful and casually racist people.