The 57 Bus By Dashka Slater Sparknotes

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater is compelling nonfiction following a real story about two teenagers who faced the consequences of a life-altering crime. In 2013, an assault, considerably a hate crime, took place on a city bus in Oakland, California involving an agender teen, Sasha, and a black teenager, Richard. With ample detail, Slater describes the lifestyles of both characters, such as how Richard didn’t grow up in the best environment but was still a good person. Sasha, on the other hand, was constantly surrounded by supportive people; they were named Luke at birth, but decided it didn't apply to them correctly and identified as agender. While riding home on the bus, Sasha falls asleep and Richard, not intending the harm that occurred, lit

Intro The 57 Bus takes place in Oakland, California where a black teenager named Richard burned an innocent teen because his friends thought it would be a funny joke to pull on someone they didn't even know. The victim was Sasha Fleischman who was agender (gender nonconforming). Richard and Sasha's lives are changed for forever . My inquiry question is can someone's sexual orientation be considered a hate crime in court?

Matthew Delmont’s book challenges us to rethink the history of “busing,” Delmont intentionally places in quotation marks to show its importance . Before Brown v. Board of Ed in 1954, riding the bus was only for white children. School integration movement headed up North during the 60’s, and white people did not like this so they made the issue about busing. This allowed white people to stop school integration and use different terms to not sound racist or bigoted. Delmont examines how the media went along with this new racist idea.

Just to show how separate these two stories are, Black Boy opens up with young Richard lighting straw on fire in his grandmother’s furnace while his brother repeatedly tells him to stop. Richard then sets his grandmother’s curtains ablaze just to understand what would happen. This event is a representation of Richard’s constant struggle to understand the separation between black and white and the way the world works now while at the same time being constantly badgered about how he should stop trying to understand everything and should just go along with everything. Because of Richard’s constant desire to understand everything, he repeatedly creates turmoil in his numerous households. An example being when he moves back into his grandmother’s house and takes up an extreme obsession with reading while his heavily religious grandmother, who believes that anything fictional is the work of the devil.

The book, The 57 bus by Dashka Slater is about two high school students who had a very important event happened in their lives. Sasha is an agender person which means they identify as neither a male nor a female. Richard is a young African American male who had some trouble in his school life. Sasha and Richard's lives both changed after an incident involving a bus, a skirt, and a lighter. Sasha is an important person to many LGBTQ+ people and what Richard, has done, will probably show as a reason to support them more.

There are many restrictions in society that bind us to certain categories. Whether it be male vs female, rich vs poor, good vs bad, or child vs adult, these categories determine who we are. The 57 Bus is a book about breaking free from these restrictions. Sasha, a white teen living in the better parts of Oakland, is trying to figure out their gender and who they are in the world. Richard, a black teen living in the parts of Oakland more ridden by violence, has completely different circumstances, trying to figure out the spectrum of good and bad and where he belongs on it.

He explains to himself that right now, he is in a position of constant small terror, and is taking a risk that will either increase the terror or eliminate a major part of it. Stealing is Richard’s first outright and self aware violation of a set morals that he had presented in the past. He had other options to escape the South, such as saving money slowly and honestly, and yet he chose not to. Richard observes that he is expected to be a criminal. He notes the terrifying times when he was brutally attacked despite his clear innocence and vulnerability.

(Wright 15) Richard is also seen as not worthy by his father because he's just a boy, with his dad telling him things like “Get out of my eyes before I smack you down”. (Wright 12) Also seen as not worthy by white people since he's black. This resulted in Richard being used by white people for entertainment in bars with Richard saying “I took a sip and coughed, the men and women laughed. The entire crowd in the saloon gathered about me.” (Wright 20)

Richard starts to experience this even from his adolescent years through his parents' harsh treatment toward him and being beaten by boys his own age in the streets of Memphis. This event that got him into a fight made him realize that he is no different than the whites. Standing up for himself, he took a stick and fought back at them, egging them on. Scaring them off, the white boys ran away. Richard thought to himself, “ On my way back I kept my stick poised for instant use, but there was not a single boy in sight.

In Hannah Greendale’s review about The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater, she argues about how the transgender community or those who identify as agender are being mistreated. She writes her review base off of a sociological lens. One of the main characters struggles with there sexuality while the other one is presented differently due to his race. Sasha is the name of one of the characters, and she identifies as neither male nor female. Sasha was born as a male named Luke, but as she grew up, she realized that she enjoyed wearing skirts instead of clothing that boys would typically wear.

Then he heard Sashas screams. He stopped, turned around, went back, He stared at the bus, mouth open.” This is an excellent example of the instant regret and internal conflict that precedes the actions taken by the individual that were so heavily influenced by the people around them. The description of Richard turning around and staring at the bus in an attempt to process the impact of his actions demonstrates not

In this part of the book, Karl is reading a statement about how they have fully forgiven Richard and how they got his letters. And wishing they could have got them earlier before Debbie made a statement earlier in the book. Slaters states, “His actions appear to have been impulsive, immature, and unpremeditated. ”(Slater 286). This quote shows Slater's credibility in the use of the occasion to show how Richard is immature at his age.

Jim Lehrer, bus enthusiast, news reporter and editor, and television anchor, has lots of memorable stories in his autobiography. From his time as a reporter, to the Kennedy assassination, to his heart attack, to defining and refining national television. However, the last major story in his autobiography, and likely the biggest, gives the book it's title: A Bus of My Own. Mr. Lehrer describes how the “Voice of Buses Past” had come, to tell him to go buy a bus, and that's just what he did. Finding a bus to buy was actually quite simple and painless, compared to his hunts for bus signs from American, and Dixie-Sunshine.

Richard has always felt the unjust of race, and has felt how segregation made it hard for him to have a future. But when he gets a chance to get revenge on the whites, he refuses when he thinks ”Who wanted to look them straight in the face, who wanted to walk and act like a man.(200)” Stealing went against his morals of the right way to succeed and would not help the community appearance to the whites. The community as a whole is very religous but Richard does not share these beliefs, even with the persistence of his friends and family he says ”Mama, I don't feel a thing.(155)” This caused his friends to beg him, but in face of rejection they leave him alone.

“I was learning rapidly how to watch white people, to observe their every move, every fleeting expression, how to interpret what we said and what we left unsaid” (Wright 181). Richard uses his observation of whites to guide himself on how to act and react around white people. For example he must agree with the whites even if he truly disagrees. For example he must agree with the whites even if he truly disagrees. “I answered with false heartiness, falling quickly into that nigger-being-a-good-natured-boy-in-the- presence-of-a-white-man pattern, a pattern into which I could now slide easily” (Wright 234).