54 pages • 1 hour read
Kekla MagoonHow It Went Down
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Racial Bias
At its core, How it Went Down focuses on the effects of racial bias. When Tariq Johnson is murdered by a white man in a neighborhood that is considered “the ghetto” even by its inhabitants, almost everyone who seeks to piece together what happened is cognizant of the fact that racial bias plays a role in how blacks are viewed by the media, law enforcement, and the public at-large. The author’s use of multiple points-of-view underscores this fact. White characters like Tom Arlen, and Tariq’s killer, Jack Franklin, stick to a narrative that paints Tariq as a thug who has a gun and was part of the city’s gang problem. To underscore this bias, Jack Franklin is released from police custody and given back his gun under the pretense that there is no evidence to hold him and that self-defense is an American right. Reverend Sloan critiques this police stance in pointing out that if the case went to court, Jack Franklin wouldn’t have a leg to stand on; Franklin, and others, imagined seeing a gun (which turned out probably to be a Snickers bar) and reacted without any facts.
The narrative also shows how biased the media can be in situations like this. As Rocky—the store owner who sold Tariq the Snickers bar moments before he was killed—attests to, the news headlines change like the wind, and they are often opinionated based on their end goal. Rocky also deals with cops who continue to press him for a story that aligns with theirs. They talk to him as if they know that Tariq is a gang member who robbed him, when in fact Tariq paid for his groceries and has always been kind to Rocky. This isn’t what the police want to hear, however, and they leave his store disappointed with his answers.
A poignant critique of racial bias is given by Junior, an 8-5 Kings member who is now serving life in jail for being a part of someone’s murder. Junior notes how the media and those in power seek to paint people as guilty without evidence. For his crime (he stabbed someone who later died from the beating he received after the stabbing), there was no knife tying him to the crime because Junior gave it to Tariq to hide. Despite this, a picture of Junior on Facebook with a knife was used to indict him. Likewise, and according to Junior, even though the gun that some people mention Tariq having has never been found, people are still painting him as guilty and as a thug. Racial bias plays a large part in this, especially as Junior and Tariq live in an inner-city riddled with crime and poverty. Tom Arlen also underscores the racial bias later in the narrative when he admits that even though he believes Jack Franklin is a good guy, he also realizes that urban blacks aren’t always given a fair trial. Moreover, Tom says that if he wasn’t directly involved due to Franklin, he would also be protesting the injustice with the rest of his community in Underhill.
Gang Culture
How it Went Down explores the complexities of inner-city life as it merges with gang life, all while not glorifying gang culture or demonizing it injudiciously. The narrative shows how this type of life might sound glorifying to many of those who join, but that these same people join because their lives do not offer many other options. The kids of Underhill must deal with the Stingers and the 8-5 Kings, two gangs that are often at war with each other, and which recruit in the neighborhood. Those in the neighborhood live with the threat of gang violence—and the threat of being bullied to join a gang—everyday. Though many get used to it and try to not be in the wrong place at the wrong time, others aren’t so lucky. Tariq Johnson’s character is killed in the beginning of the narrative, and his plausible ties to the 8-5 Kings haunt him. Indeed, some characters relate just how close Tariq seemed to joining the Kings, and how some parts of gang life, like making enough money to be happy, appealed to him.
Tyrell’s character is also a good example of those living in poverty or near poverty who want out but who are often unable to escape the clutches of gang activity and gang violence. Tyrell is a smart kid who excels at math. He has hopes of going to college and getting away from Underhill. He wants something better for himself, yet Tyrell also knows that he doesn’t have the means to afford college. Though he works as a tutor, he understands that it’s expensive just to apply to colleges. The one thing that has kept Tyrell away from gangs up until this point is the protection of his best friend, Tariq. When Tariq is killed, Tyrell is left without protection. The 8-5 Kings then set about trying to recruit him. The gang’s leader, Brick, goes so far as to reveal his plan of making Tyrell (Ty) a part of the gang to Tyrell’s father, who accepts Brick’s plan on the premise of Tyrell finally becoming/acting like a man. Tyrell eventually resigns himself to the fact that, statistically, he’s fated to join the Kings. With his center off balance, he even goes so far as to nearly convince himself that harming Jack Franklin as revenge for Tariq’s death is something that Tariq would have wanted. It takes Tyrell seeing Tariq’s sister, Tina, out by herself to get him to realize that Tariq wouldn’t have wanted him to get tangled up with the Kings. Tyrell’s arc in the narrative shows, however, just how easy it is even for someone who wants out to get sucked in to the black hole of gang violence and the feeling of helplessness.
Community
Community is highlighted in How it Went Down. The narrative is told from multiple points-of-view, highlighting different beliefs and worldviews in the community of Underhill. Though the community suffers from a gang presence and gang activity, the people of Underhill still take pride in their community. Events like Tariq Johnson’s death happen more frequently than people want, and it takes Tariq’s death to help rally the community and fight against injustice. As Reverend Sloan and Tom Arlen allude to on separate occasions, black-on-black crime happens all the time. This time, however, a white man has killed a black kid, seemingly without cause. Moreover, there are no repercussions for the actions of Jack Franklin (Tariq’s killer). This causes everyone in Underhill, from gangs to family and friends, to step up and speak out about racial bias and ill-treatment. The members of the Underhill community come together on different occasions to honor and memorialize Tariq. These events include memorials, marches, and Tariq’s funeral. By utilizing various perspectives in the narrative, the narrator is able to show how Tariq’s death affected many different people in the community and on what level it did this.
Though gang culture is a subset of the community, the 8-5 Kings also highlight a concept of community. Most of those who join the Kings want to feel like they’re a part of something, a sentiment Jennica highlights. It feels good to have friends and even a surrogate family, especially as street life in an inner-city is trying for most of the characters in the narrative. Some members have absentee parents, or parents that are in jail or who have died, and the gang fills their need for comradery. The leader of the 8-5 Kings, Brick, sees his gang as a community that protects its people, which is why he wants Tyrell to join the gang. He offers protection and safety from the streets. Ironically, much of the problem with the streets stems from gang activity, but Brick and others see themselves as a force to protect others against rival gangs like the Stingers.
Guilt
Guilt is another major theme of the narrative. As the story is told from multiple points-of-view, the reader is able to understand the concept of guilt as it affects different people. One of the first people who evidences guilt is the store owner who sold Tariq Johnson a Snickers, before Tariq was killed. The store owner, Rocky, noticed that Tariq forgot his change. He left the store and called after Tariq. Though he wanted to do right, his actions were misinterpreted. A passerby, Brian Trellis, thought that Rocky was calling for help and that Tariq stole the groceries that he actually bought. He stops Tariq and tries to apprehend him for the police. When Tariq objects and starts yelling at Brian, Jack Franklin, a white man passing by in a car, gets out and shoots Tariq dead. Though there were a lot of things that went wrong leading up to Tariq’s death, Rocky feels that if he had just held on to the change for Tariq or his mother to get at a later date, none of this would have happened. Brian Trellis also echoes this sentiment several times when he wonders if Tariq might still be alive had he not intervened.
Reverend Sloan is a politician from Washington, DC who gets involved in the Tariq Johnson case. Sloan doesn’t want to get involved initially. In time, however, he knows that his poll numbers will increase if he helps, and he becomes directly involved with the Johnson family as it grieves and with the community of Underhill as it grieves as well. Sloan begins to feel guilty because he had prayed to God that something might happen to let him climb in poll numbers. Though he didn’t directly pray for Tariq’s death, he prayed for something to happen and it did. Also, he initially didn’t want to get involved because he knew that black kids were killed all the time and that this time it would probably be no different. His initial indifference, and the reality of him benefitting from Tariq’s death, haunt him throughout the narrative. He also has a son and knows that it could have been him who was killed.
Redeema, Tariq’s grandmother, also feels a measure of guilt. She and Tariq’s mother, Vernesha, took his do-rags (handkerchiefs) and used them as cloths for cleaning so that he couldn’t wear these colors out and be mistaken as a gang member. On the day he was killed, Redeema asked Tariq to clean the house. He had one of the do-rags in his pocket because he was cleaning, and his mother asked him to go get some groceries. He left with the rag in his pocket. Redeema feels that he might not have been killed had she not given him the task, yet she also knows that trying to think about the what-ifs is entirely damaging and that it leads nowhere.
Tyrell also feels a sense of guilt at Tariq’s death. Though Tariq was his best friend, Tariq knows that, statistically speaking, the more people who join gangs or are killed by gang violence mean that his chances of escape are higher. He even made a chart with other people’s names on it to show how high (or low) his chances of getting out were. Friends like Sammy, a gang member and former best friend of Tariq’s, also feel guilt. Sammy was standing next to Tariq and could have pulled out his gun and shot Jack Franklin. He didn’t, though, and the fact troubles him. Even Brick, the leader of the Kings, thinks about how he could have cut or shot Jack and saved Tariq’s life.
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