Here we are, in the 21st century, with racism still running rampant. Russell Bordeaux is the star tight end for the mostly-black Jackson Jackals varsity football team. His best friend, Marion LaSalle, is the starting varsity quarterback. Together, they are the senior varsity captains. Marion was wrongfully arrested and kicked off the team by a corrupt cop after a fight broke out during a football game. In retaliation to this unjust act by the police, Russel Bordeaux took a knee during their next game. This brought an uproar to his name. In 2 weeks, both of them had their chances of getting a scholarship to a big college slip away. Throughout the story, Rus’ actions swayed from fighting racism to fighting for his future. In the end, Marion and Rus both choose to fight racism to help fight for their future. Marion and Rus participated in a protest that ended up swaying the public view on what happened with Marion. Marion got his charges lifted after a new video angle was released to the prosecutor, thus allowing for him to be on the team and thus allowing him to return to the team. In the end, Marion and Russel got their rematch and the rest is history. In this book, I was surprised to see how much racism was still in our country. This book was based on true accounts of racism in our country within the last 5 years. To see that this is still painstakingly common in our country was horrible to hear. I noticed that this book was written in a way that emphasized personal actions over group actions. The internal battles that Rus was facing and the external grief that Marion was showing were common topics. I also sometimes get tired of books that just recount so many different true accounts over and over, so this book that had 1 account of racism, yet explained in a way that is descriptive enough and ties into sports really helped me. Something I learned about myself in this book is that there are some things that we do that hurt others without even realizing it. The scale of our small problems may not seem like a lot, but it may hurt someone else more than you know. Little things can add up and mentally destroy a person into believing that they should change. Hearing about all the small negatives that Rus went through in such a short span of time made me realize how important those little things are. You never know what a person has going for them in their own time, so don’t assume that if they have a smile on their face, they are happy. They may be hiding themselves to try to fit in. This book has some very powerful points in it. It truly shows some of the hardships that people still face with racism in their everyday lives. This was an eye-opening book and I am happy I got a chance to read it. -Noah M.
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AuthorSTenth grade students at Decorah High School share how they're reading outside of their own experiences and how it has changed them. Categories
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November 2022
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