Summary: Punching the Air is a novel written by national book award finalists Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five. Punching the Air follows the story of Amal Shahid, a young man who grows up in a low-income area, but attends an arts high school in the high-income, predominantly white area of East Hills. Most of the story is about Amal’s imprisonment in a juvenile detention facility due to an altercation with a white teenager named Jeremy Mathis, an altercation in which Amal is, at first glance, the aggressor. The altercation between the two results in Jeremy being left in a comatose state, unable to testify as to what occurred the night of the fight. Unfortunately, due to the small number of character witnesses that truly know Amal, his lackluster lawyer, and the seemingly damnable story, Amal is convicted of aggravated assault and battery. The story stretches from just before Amal’s conviction, to Jeremy Mathis’ awakening, and is told through a series of poems that Amal either writes or thinks.
Impact: The novel impacted me firstly because I can relate to many aspects of his character. Amal is an artist as I am, and is not particularly interested in sports. In Amal’s memories, there are scenes in his life that are very similar to my own. For instance, in one of Amal’s inner monologues he remembers as a child reciting the lyrics of Nas with his mother, which is an experience I share with him; me and my mother and father rapping the lyrics of Children’s Story by Slick Rick to each other. It also impacts me, because even though he is different from a stereotypical black teenager, he is still treated as one. Regardless of interests in the arts, or his preferring skateboarding to playing basketball, Amal is still treated as a violent hoodlum who attacked an innocent young boy. Although Jeremy and his group chased Amal home screaming at him to “Get the *expletive* out!”, none of this is taken into account by the court. Those who truly know Amal are not brought on as character witnesses, and his lawyer never even says that he is on Amal’s side.
The story also impacts me because it encouraged me to do some research on the Exonerated Five, a situation similar to that of Amal-wrong place at the wrong time. For people of color, the wrong place and wrong time can be a death sentence literally and figuratively. Amal’s story parallels many in history, be it the Exonerated Five, Emmet Till, or more recently Treyvon Martin. The story sends a message, and teaches a very grim lesson, no matter what your disposition or situation is, the color of your skin will always be a factor in almost every situation.
The novel draws from the history again when Amal paints a mural for the detention center and it is removed, due to a policy of no gang colors, signs, or symbols of which there were none. This portion of the novel brought me back to the streets of Black Wall Street, like the mural, Black Wall Street was a way for a group of oppressed people to express themselves in a place unwelcoming to them, and like Black Wall Street, the mural was destroyed, painted over, a decision strongly insinuated to be brought on by a white officer with a racist tattoo.
In conclusion, Punching the Air is a novel that uses history and injustices to create a story that truly feels real, as good art should. When reading the novel the reader finds themselves in the shoes of Amal many times, crying with him in his sadness, smiling with him in his happiness, and being upset at the injustices he faces, punching the air with him.