The cop must decide between using his last set of handcuffs on either Jojo, the scared, Black child, and Misty, a grown, White woman ultimately, “the officer looks between the two and makes his decision and walks toward Jojo, his third pair of handcuffs out” (Ward 163). He restrains both Leonie and Michael, Jojo’s White father, with handcuffs. After Leonie reveals that the family is coming from Parchman Prison, a notoriously brutal state prison, the officer immediately orders everyone to get out of the car.
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The officer questions Leonie and the car full of a mixed-race family, which causes the policeman to be suspicious. The police pull over Leonie, Jojo’s Black mother, because she is swerving. Portrayed as a threat for simply being Black, Jojo is targeted unfairly by the police when they pull Jojo’s family over for a minor traffic violation. River, Given’s father and Jojo’s grandfather, also experiences unjust treatment from the police and the judicial system he receives a harsher sentence for a lesser crime than his son’s murderer, revealing how unjust our judicial system is and the need for its reform.
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Given’s murder trial is grossly mishandled his murderer, a racist, white man, virtually goes unpunished for his crime, demonstrating a clear judicial bias against Black men. Given, one of the ghosts in the novel, is River’s deceased son and Jojo’s uncle. Jojo, the young, innocent, biracial teen boy trying to find his way in the world, experiences police brutality. Primarily set in present-day Mississippi, the book illustrates how racism taints almost every aspect of the black characters’ lives Jojo, Given, and River all face varying levels of discrimination at the hands of the law. The novel portrays how racism still exists in the United States, particularly in the Deep South. Unfairly targeted, unfairly treated, three generations of African American men suffer at the hands of racism in the Deep South in Jesmyn Ward’s novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing. A Call for Judicial Reform in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing