The kitchen table is covered with food—my favorites, potato salad, lemon meringue pie, pork chops. If everyone wasn’t so sad-faced, I’d swear it was a party. I reach for a cornbread square and my hand passes through it. Weird, but it’s okay. I’m not hungry. I guess I’ll never be hungry again.
Early in Ghost Boys, Jerome attends his own wake at his family's apartment. In this passage, Jerome discovers a limitation of being in the afterlife: he cannot physically interact with the world of the living. As soon as his hand passes through the piece of cornbread, however, Jerome realizes he has no desire or need to eat. A ghost now, Jerome exists on a supernatural plane where quotidian human concerns like hunger mean nothing.
“He’s in a better place,” says Reverend. “Jerome’s in a better place.”
Am I?
Ma rocks, her arms crossed over her stomach.
“Every goodbye ain’t gone,” says Grandma.
“Mom, hush with that nonsense,” complains Ma.
“Every black person in the South knows it’s true. Dead, living, no matter. Both worlds are close. Spirits aren’t gone.”
“Superstition,” scoffs Reverend. “This is Chicago. Jerome’s soul is already gone.”
I kneel. “I’m still here, Ma. I’m still here.”
In this exchange, Jerome overhears a conversation among his church's reverend and his family members. While Reverend Thornton hopes to provide reassurance to the grieving family by insisting Jerome is "in a better place," the reader and Jerome know that, unbeknownst to the reverend, Jerome is in the room with them. Extending the moment of dramatic irony, the reader knows Grandma isn't being superstitious, as the man of faith claims. Rather, she is correct in believing that the barrier between the world of the dead and the living is porous.
“An open casket,” murmurs Ma. “‘I want the whole world to see what they did to my boy.’ Isn’t that what Mrs. Till said? Isn’t it?”
While preparing for Jerome's funeral, Ma refers to Emmett Till's mother Mamie, who insisted that her son have an open-casket funeral. After her son was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, Emmett Till's mother wanted the public to see images of her son's mutilated face so that people would understand the extreme cruelty he was subjected to by his killers. Emmett's funeral drew tens of thousands of mourners, and images of his body were circulated in the media. Mamie Till's decision helped galvanize civil rights activists who fought for equal rights for African Americans. In referencing this historical example, Jerome's mother draws a historical connection between the unjust murders of Emmett and Jerome, who are both victims of racial prejudice.
The prosecutor continues, “How old was the assailant?”
“I thought at least twenty-five. He was a man. A dangerous man.”
“So you were doing your job as trained?”
“Yes.”
“Were you upset to discover the man was a boy? A twelve-year-old boy?”
Ma starts moaning, crying, soft yet sharp.
“I was surprised. He was big, hulking. Scary.”
“You felt threatened?”
The officer pauses. I’m staring right into his eyes. He looks through me. He’s studying his wife and daughter. His daughter is studying me. I don’t know why or how she sees me.
He swallows, his tongue licking his bottom lip. “I… felt… threatened.”
During the preliminary hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence to criminally charge Officer Moore for shooting Jerome, the prosecutor (the lawyer representing the state) questions Moore about what possessed him to mistake a child with a toy for a grown man posing a violent threat. In this exchange, Moore defends himself by claiming that he felt threatened by Jerome, whom he perceived as much bigger and scarier than he was in reality. The passage is significant because it references the real-world issue of police officers justifying disproportionate violence against Black men and boys by claiming that they acted out of self-defense, as their training instructs. With this justification, police are immune from criminal penalties.
“Possibly you were responding to unconscious stereotypes of black men as large, threatening, dangerous?”
“No. I acted with just cause.”
“How tall is your daughter?”
“Objection,” says the seated lawyer.
“Sustained,” answers the judge.
“I’ll ask another way. Would it surprise you if I told you Jerome Rogers, the child you killed, was no taller than five feet, ninety pounds?”
Officer Moore is surprised.
In another exchange from Officer Moore's preliminary hearing testimony, the prosecutor suggests Moore shot Jerome because he, as a white man, has an unconscious bias against Black men that leads him to perceive them as more threatening and larger than they are in reality. To prove his point, the prosecutor exposes Moore's hypocrisy by explaining that Jerome, at twelve years old, was the same height and weight as Moore's own twelve-year-old daughter, Sarah. In pointing out the parallel, the prosecutor shows that Moore lives with a daily reminder of what a child looks like; the only difference is that Jerome was Black, and therefore Moore saw him as larger than he was.
Sarah’s not stupid but even if I was alive, we wouldn’t live in the same world. Hers is a fantasy world. Like a TV family in a huge house with plenty of money, food. Being poor is real. Our church has a food pantry, emergency dollars for winter heating. Last year when Ma’s appendix broke, when her sick leave was gone, we got bread, peanut butter, and applesauce. Does Pop know Officer Moore gets paid for not working? For killing me? I want to kick something, scream, break down. But what’s the use?
In this passage, Rhodes builds on the major theme of social and economic inequality. At Sarah's house, Jerome notices that, as a white middle-class girl, Sarah lives a life of privilege that prevents her from seeing her father's actions through the same lens through which Jerome and his family do. With statistically disproportionate violence directed toward members of Black and poor communities, the police, from Jerome's perspective, are people you must be careful around. For Sarah, however, the police are there to "protect and serve," preventing harm from coming to people of her ethnicity and class.
“Believe this, Jerome. It matters that Sarah can see you.”
For much of the book, Jerome feels that the gulf between his and Sarah's experiences is so vast that it is futile to try to convince her to see the world through his eyes. However, as the novel goes on, Jerome will come to understand the importance of people like Sarah expanding their awareness and learning about people like Jerome. In this passage, Emmett cryptically insists on the significance of Sarah's ability to see Jerome's ghost. Beyond her literal ability to "see" Jerome, it matters that Sarah sees Jerome in a more holistic sense. By learning about Jerome, Sarah comprehends the unfairness of a justice system and social status quo that sees a Black boy's life as worth far less than hers. Having seen Jerome, she is impelled to bring about meaningful change in the world.
"The court truly regrets the death of Jerome Rogers. But … justice is tempered by the fact that a police officer’s job is incredibly hard and complicated. An emergency nine-one-one call, a young man with a realistic-looking gun, a concern for public safety, and an officer’s fear for his life are all facts I’ve considered. In the opinion of this court, there is not enough evidence to charge Officer Moore with excessive force, manslaughter, or murder."
After two days of testimony, the preliminary hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence to warrant charges against Officer Moore ends with the judge's decision. In this passage, the judge declines to charge Moore, taking his justification that he was "in fear for his life" as reason enough to shoot a child whose back was turned. While Jerome's family can still sue Moore in civil court for damages, the dismissal of the criminal case before it even has a chance to be tried before a jury shows the power of the judiciary branch of government. In this case, one judge has the power to prevent justice from being served, masking her own personal bias (i.e. a bias in favor of the police) with the authority of the court. In this way, Rhodes shows how injustice perpetuates in a system that is structurally unfair.
One by one, two by two, in small clusters, my ghost crew roams.
Emmett murmurs, “Bear witness.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Everyone needs their story heard. Felt. We honor each other. Connect across time.”
At the end of Emmett Till's traumatic story, he is ready to leave Jerome. However, Emmett reminds Jerome of the importance of bearing witness—a term that Rhodes defines in her afterword as meaning "using your personal and/or cultural story to testify against inequities, injustice, and suffering." As a "ghost boy," Emmett assumes his role as a storyteller, using his story to educate others about racial discrimination and injustice, and he encourages Jerome to take on the same responsibility. Jerome fulfills that request by narrating the book itself. In this way, Rhodes makes a point about how people like Jerome, Emmett, and the thousands of other Black Americans who have been victims of injustice need not have died in vain. By learning about them and honoring their stories, the living are motivated to make the world a more peaceful place.
“Can't undo wrong. Can only do our best to make things right.”
Toward the end of the novel, Carlos admits to Grandma that he gave Jerome the toy gun he was playing with when he was shot. Kim also admits she knew of the gun, and tried to dissuade Jerome from playing with it. Rather than reprimand the children or become bitter, Grandma shows compassion and forgiveness, explaining in this passage that it is impossible to undo one's mistakes; the only thing a person can do is learn from the past and try, through future decisions, to make up for what has happened. Grandma knows that Carlos, in taking Jerome's place as a big-brother figure to Kim, has already been doing his best to make up for his part in Jerome's death. She encourages the children to continue doing good, honoring Jerome by not letting his death be in vain.
