How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
My reality didn't feel real. I couldn't believe I was sitting in a cell with a stranger discussing the possibility of me spending the rest of my life in prison. I was supposed to be on my way to college. I was supposed to be following my dream of becoming a doctor—of becoming a healer, not a destroyer.(4.43)
Shaka had other dreams before getting caught up in violence and choosing to act violently himself. Are those other dreams part of the reason he can find his way back to a different life eventually?
Quote #8
To this day, I think those shots were a cover for what Coop really wanted to do, which was cry. His family had been threatened, and he had been made to bite the bullet that was meant to kill him. No man wants to live knowing his actions could've brought devastation on his family. (13.16)
Shaka seems to be suggesting here that there might have been less violence in his old neighborhood if there had been less social stigma attached to men expressing their vulnerabilities through words or tears. It's an idea Shaka hints at often in Writing My Wrongs.
Quote #9
That's why I'm asking you to envision a world where men and women aren't heldhostage to their pasts, where misdeeds and mistakes don't define you for the rest of your life. In an era of record incarcerations and a culture of violence, we can learn to love those who no longer love themselves. Together, we can begin to make things right.(Afterword, 16).
This is how Shaka ends the book—with hope that violence doesn't need to define either American society or individual lives. We think it's significant that he invites the reader into that: it's something that takes a whole community.