77 pages • 2 hours read
Mark OshiroAnger Is a Gift
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 14-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary
Reg is taken to the school nurse and Bits helps a dazed and exhausted Moss to the school steps where he sits, remembering the blood. That night, Moss, Esperanza, Njemile, and Wanda watch the news reports of the incident, which downplay its severity and the school’s culpability. They are all angry, and Wanda exclaims that the school has no true interest in the students’ safety and does not care about what happened to Reg or Shawna. The teenagers talk about protests, Wanda says they can do better than that and leaves to call her activist friends to organize something bigger.
Wanda comes back and announces that they can hold a meeting in a local church. She tells Moss that “Anger is a gift” (169) that can be used to motivate action and bring about change. She reveals that there were days after her husband’s murders when she did not channel her anger and it consumed her, leaving her unable to even get out of bed (170). She now uses her anger as a tool. They decide to use the Facebook group to spread news about the meeting and to print out fliers disguised as invitations to a party so the school administration do not know what it going on.
Javier calls Moss and says he is in the neighborhood and could visit. He comes over, meets Wanda, and asks if Reg is doing okay, having seen the incident on the news. He also invites both Moss and Wanda over for dinner with him and his mother the next day. They accept gladly.
Chapter 15 Summary
Moss confesses to being nervous as he and Wanda take the bus to Javier’s house. Wanda is supportive, and Moss thinks how lucky he is, comparing Wanda’s acceptance of his sexuality with Esperanza’s parents, who tolerate her sexuality but will not acknowledge or talk about it. When they arrive, Javier kisses Moss on the cheek and goes to clean up; Moss flushes with embarrassment as Wanda and Eugenia smile at him affectionately. The meal is a success. Moss and Javier gently flirt, and Wanda and Eugenia get on well, discussing raising gay sons and laughing and joking together.
Moss and Javier kiss goodnight and Moss is elated on the journey home. However, that night, he wakes from a nightmare about faceless police officers bursting into his room. His mother cradles him, and Moss refers to himself as “broken” (183), worrying that Javier will not like him once he learns more about his trauma and anxiety. Wanda reassures him that “if Javier really does come to love you, he’ll love your mind for what it is, too” (184).
Chapter 16 Summary
The metal detectors are still turned off on Wednesday, but Mr. Elliot makes an announcement that they will be back on the following week after tests have been run. Kaisha tells Moss that Reg is back from hospital and recovering, and they discuss their admiration for his resilience. Moss meets Javier after school, and they go to Esperanza’s house for a meeting with Moss’s friends. Before they go in, Moss warns Javier that Esperanza’s parents are white, rich, and “kind of intense sometimes” (191).
The greet the others, and Esperanza’s parents enthusiastically welcome them all to their home, bringing out a vegetarian chili for them to share. They eat and discuss the meeting and the measures they have taken to keep it secret. Esperanza’s parents do not fully understand why they want to keep the meeting, and any future protest, secret, not having an understanding of how the police respond to protests by marginalized Black communities. Nonetheless, they are keen to help. Esperanza reluctantly agrees but warns them that they “have to sit back and listen. You have to make sure not to make it about you” (197). Moss remembers Esperanza making his discussion of the college fair about her and realizes that she does not know how much she resembles her parents sometimes (197).
After Esperanza’s parents leave the room, Javier boldly asks her what it is like having white parents. She explains that it is a mixed experience, that they are sometimes ignorant, and people question her identity a lot, but that she is ultimately lucky to have them. Esperanza then asks Javier about his parents and the others soon join in, happily badgering him for information and gossip about him and his relationship with Moss. On the way home, Moss is surprised and pleased to learn that Javier and some friends want to attend the meeting and they share a passionate kiss.
Chapter 17 Summary
When Moss arrives at Blessed Way Church, he is amazed that the room is filled with people. He recognizes many from protests and marches, especially those that followed his father’s death. He is surprised to see Mrs. Torrance, and she explains that Wanda invited her. Moss thanks his mother for her organizing skills and looks out at the crowd, amazed to see “two worlds colliding” (207) as his school friends mingle with people he remembers from back when his father was murdered.
Still amazed at the show of solidarity, Moss chats with Esperanza about her parents’ involvement and meets Javier, who invites him for breakfast on Sunday. Reverend Okonjo addresses the gathering, discussing other acts of mutual aid and community support performed by members of the crowd and encouraging everyone to see it as their duty to stand in solidarity with those who are suffering.
Reg cannot make the meeting, but Kaisha, his partner, reads a statement he wrote. When she reads that the incident with the metal detector has worsened his injury so much that he will probably never walk again, the crowd gasps, but she fiercely tells them that Reg “doesn’t want your pity, he wants you anger” (213). Shawna speaks next and explains that the metal detectors were installed after the students got angry about her being assaulted. She calls for the community to say enough is enough and the crowd is full of anger and applause.
After the speeches, Wanda takes suggestions from the crowd, and several ideas for protests are suggested. A white man suggests that there is actually nothing to protest because the metal detectors are a reasonable response to irresponsible teenagers and Reg’s injury was simply an innocent accident. Kaisha quickly shuts him down with reasoned arguments. Empowered by support from Esperanza and Javier, Moss overcomes his nervousness to address the crowd and suggest that they organize a walk out where all the students leave the school in protest at their treatment. The idea is popular, and Moss feels his anger and anxiety turn into hope (222).
Chapter 18 Summary
Moss and Javier go for breakfast and discuss the protest. Moss admits that he is surprised at how big it has become because he is “not used to people caring” (226), partly because he watched the anger at his father’s death peter out until he became just another statistic about police violence against people of color. Javier reveals that he is an undocumented immigrant.
They also talk about Moss’s insecurities and how he finds it hard to believe that Javier actually likes him. They discuss sex and conclude that neither of them is ready yet; Moss works up the courage to ask if Javier has ever dated a Black man before. Javier understands why Moss needs to ask and is supportive; Moss admits that this is not the only reason he struggles to believe that Javier could actually like him, explaining that his brain is great at turning positive things into negative things and sowing seeds of doubt. Javier is supportive again and says that he wants to understand Moss better. The two kiss passionately. Moss is amazed that he is not embarrassed despite being in public.
They discuss racism in the gay community and the naïve, privileged assumption that the Bay Area is a liberal playground free of prejudice and discrimination. They also discover a shared love of comic books, and Javier shyly admits that he likes drawing comics, eventually agreeing that he will show Moss his efforts one day.
Chapter 19 Summary
News of the protests spreads quickly through the school on Monday morning, and Moss begins to worry about the administration finding out. On Tuesday, Reg returns to school. Moss and Kaisha check he is okay as he prepares to wheel his chair up the ramp into the building. However, before he can begin, a large group of students arrive chanting his name and applauding. They lift up his wheelchair and carry him up the steps. Numerous people that they do not even know welcome Reg back and assure him that they are going to help fight for him. Moss begins to feel more confident about the protest. That night, Wanda tells him that word has spread through the community too, and a great many adults are planning to attend the demonstration in solidarity. She says that Moss’s father would be proud of him, and Moss actually believes her (240).
Chapter 20 Summary
The next day, Moss and Rawiya discuss the protest, and Rawiya reveals that her parents are nervous, having found the Bay area to not be as liberal and welcoming of Muslims as they had hoped. Moss acknowledges that it is a fairly rational response considering the Islamophobia Rawiya has already experienced from Mr. Elliot, and she asks him how manages to “Exist. When the world hates you so much” (244). They joke about him being interviewed by NPR and the way people of color are asked invasive questions, expected to “placate […] white listeners and make them feel as if they’re not personally complicit in any corrupt systems” (244). Javier arrives and reveals that he and some friends are going to ditch school to join the protest at West Oakland High. Rawiya is impressed. She jokes that they should get married and “assimilate as soon as possible” (245).
Chapters 14-20 Analysis
The theme of institutional racism returns when Wanda educates Moss and the others on the way mainstream media downplays violence against people of color, showing how news reports deny the culpability of institutions responsible for such violence. This is reflected again later when Moss and Rawiya joke about the way people of color are exploited by the media to “placate […] white listeners and make them feel as if they’re not personally complicit in any corrupt systems” (244). Thus, Anger Is a Gift points out the way issues of race in the U.S. can be skirted so as not to upset the social order. Wanda encourages Moss and the others to question such reporting and to make efforts to change their conditions, strongly supporting the idea of staging some kind of protest or demonstration. Most significantly, she encourages them to change their perception of anger from something consuming and destructive to something positive that they can channel and use. She acknowledges that after Moss’s father was murdered her own anger managed to consume her, leaving her unable to get out of bed, but she explains that it can also be harnessed and used to motivate change, insisting that, in this sense, “Anger is a gift” (169). This perception of anger as an active force, something that can be used for good, appears again when Kaisha breaks off from reading Reg’s statement to tell the crowd that Reg “doesn’t want your pity, he wants you anger” (213). In this way, the book encourages active rather than passive resistance and implores people of color and allies to overtly acknowledge and fight against injustice.
Moss continues to struggle with the systemic traumatic effects of institutional racism in these chapters, most notably when, despite a lovely evening with Wanda, Eugenia, and Javier, he wakes crying from another nightmare about police officers breaking into his room. We can see this as another sight of intersection, with Moss’s identity and experiences being shaped not only by his race and sexuality but also by his mental health and his concerns that he is “broken” (183)—a message imparted to him daily by mainstream culture. His dream signifies the anxiety people of color experience daily—that all they have can be ripped from them in an instant by a white establishment that assumes control. Intersecting forms of privilege and marginalization are thematically significant again when Moss and Javier join the others at Esperanza’s house. Although liberal and well-meaning, Esperanza’s parents also benefit from their white privilege to the extent that Moss feels compelled to warn Javier that the house is extremely large and sumptuous and that Esperanza’s parents are “kind of intense sometimes” (191). While they recognize their own privilege to some degree, Esperanza’s parents are also ignorant of how much easier their lives are compared to the poor people of color from Moss’s neighborhood. This is most apparent in their inability to understand why Moss and the others do not trust the school or the police: as wealthy white people, they see these institutions as forces for good, as people who will help them, rather than as a very real threat. They are also prone to playing “white savior,” getting involved in causes that they do not fully understand and not listening to the people who are actually affected by the issues. Although Esperanza is aware of this and warns them that they “have to sit back and listen. You have to make sure not to make it about you” (197), she is unaware of how much she has learned this same behavior from them.
A similar attitude is also reflected in Moss and Javier’s discussion of racism within the gay community and the stereotypes and discrimination they experience as people of color. Their discussion highlights the ways that sexuality and race intersect and how gay people of color are marginalized and oppressed in ways that white gay people are not. Indeed, they explicitly critique the privileged assumption that the Bay area is free of discrimination. This critique appears again when Rawiya admits that her parents are anxious about the protest because they have learned that the area is not quite the liberal bastion they had hoped and is still rife with Islamophobia and prejudice. Rawiya also makes the intersection of race and sexuality explicit when she asks Moss how, as a gay Black man, he even manages to “Exist. When the world hates you so much” (244).
