The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

A book that divides the races into oppressors and victims

Centered on the main character Elwood, The Nickel Boys tells the gruesome story of a juvenile detention facility for boys. The residents consist of both black and white boys separated into two areas within the same facility. Their government funded detention facility is corrupt and abusive. The boys are forced to work, made to fight each other, badly beaten, sexually abused, and even murdered, all while their food and supplies are sold off to local businesses for profit by those in charge.

The book is filled with foul language and content that fuels the racism fire. For example, chapter 3 begins, "On the first day of the school year, the students of Lincoln High School received their new secondhand textbooks from the white high school across the way. Knowing where the textbooks were headed, the white students left inscriptions for the next owners: Choke, Nigger! You Smell. Eat Shit."

Chapter 7 begins, "Her father died in jail after a white lady downtown accused him of not getting out of her way on the sidewalk."

References are made to the boys "jacking themselves off", "jacking other boys off", going to "Lover's Lane", and being watched in the shower by administrators. The book is anti-parent, anti-police, anti-rule and anti-authority. The heroes are the boys that get their revenge on the white administrators by feeding them horse poison, and escaping, but the main message from this book is “All white people are bad. White people run everything, and are the oppressors of all black people who are victims.”

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead was advertised in a display promoting black authors at Grand Haven High School. It is available to 12-18 year old students at Lakeshore Middle School, GHHS, and Central High School. It is also available in Grand Haven High School in Spanish. This is a library book that is not just sitting on the shelf, but being RECOMMENDED to our youth. This book gets a rating of 3F. (Equivalent to an R rated movie for violence, profanity, drug or alcohol abuse and sexual content; F for excessive indoctrination).