Police Brutality/Racial Profiling

The author uses the theme of police brutality and racial profiling in order to highlight the importance of race issues in contemporary America. This is most prominent in the essay, “How to Kill Yourself and Others in America,” as when Laymon changes time periods, he compares his own age to that of someone who was killed either by a police officer or by a firearm. By doing this, he further humanizes the victim by comparing them to the individual whose perspective the reader views the story from, Laymon’s. The author decides to mention it constantly in many essays in order to inform the reader of the frequency of which African Americans die of violence.

The author also uses the theme of racial profiling to inform the reader of how exactly it happens. In order to do this, the author used real-world examples of being...