Welcome to Litsy!

Guilt, she says, is both helpful and healthy: “It‘s holding something we‘ve done or failed to do up against our values and feeling psychological discomfort,” she writes. Shame, on the other hand, is “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we‘ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.

It doesn‘t heal all wounds
It doesn‘t erase the pain
What time does is
add
new pages
to your story
so when you scan the past
there‘s something else to read.

“It was just Charles being Charles.”

And to his eyes, the girls didn‘t seem that upset. They kept their anguish hidden, their faces smiling, and since he‘d never spent much time thinking about the ways their experience of the world differed from his own, he assumed they saw the humor in it, the way his guy friends did. Before he left, they promised they wouldn‘t tell anyone what they had seen, because the account was supposed to be a secret.

I appreciated the section in part 1 titles, “SOME THINGS THAT HAPPEN WHEN YOU‘RE BLACK IN A MOSTLY WHITE SCHOOL.“ I feel like this was a great way to open the book because it illustrates the difficulties that Black girls in predominantly white communities face. This shows the inner turmoil that Andrea and Lolia had to face before they ever had Charles posting racist memes about them.

One thing that I appreciated about the book was how it examined the role that everyone had on the situation. The book did not solely focus on Charles, the poster of the hateful media, but also the girls who were targeted, the FOLLOWERS of the account, and outsiders. I emphasized followers because I think it is very easy to fall into a space of complicity when viewing hate on the internet. The anonymity of the internet is a danger to accountability

I thought that this book would be a great read for students. I spoke about the permanence of the internet a lot with my students and while they seemed to know, they did not seem to fully understand. The author does a great job at illustrating the whole impact of Charles' account. I found it shocking that the account only had 13 followers, but I think that could really enlighten students on how things can spread well beyond the intended audience.

Something else that I loved about this book was all of the different perspectives that we heard from. Because of the diversity of Slater's participants, this gave the book a very in depth and well rounded feel to me. I heard from a lot of different people who each had different perspectives on the situation and this did a lot for me in terms of being able to conceptualize this situation.

Something that I really liked about this book was how well the informational elements were disguised. I feel like I walked away from this book knowing way more than I did before, but at no point did I feel the chore of informational reading. It really was so captivating and the author did a wonderful job of employing the youth of these participants instead of trying to suppress it. Slater is the type of writer that can capitalize on any element.

I mentioned this in a reply, but I think that this book could potentially be a great book club book for a group of students. I love the way that the book is formatted and it felt like a very quick read for me because it was so engaging. There are several breaks for dialogue and other interruptions in the text that I think would be a good launch pad to facilitate group discussion.

This was another book that I wouldn‘t gravitate towards reading, but I am really glad that I did. I feel that I was made aware of many things that I hadn‘t considered before. Alongside that, it will be a beneficial tool in future classrooms that I will be teaching as well

Something that I found to be very important was the discussion of how there is power in peaceful protesting and an acknowledgment that protests can get out of hand so fast. In a future classroom, I hope I can find an accompanying novel that depicts peaceful and un-protests to go alongside this novel.

This is a heavy, but informative book about the history of racism. Slater resents it in such a way that is not only informative but relational to jokes and situations occurring within schools today. It‘s been an interesting and truly eye opening read and I am curious how this could be adapted to a reading done within public schools.

This might be my favorite book we‘ve read so far! It was so well written and thoughtful, especially considering the heavy topic of the book. I appreciate the way Slater included the many different sides to the story; there are so many lessons to learn from the incident and its aftermath. I would 100% recommend this to young adult readers looking for something more serious and perhaps introspective.

I think the way Slater highlights the importance of multiple perspectives in this book keeps the reader in touch with how real it is. I feel like most pieces that are similar to this can be one dimensional with only one view but with all the different point of views of all the different students, it makes it feel more powerful. I think most anyone would benefit from reading this because it‘s empowering for the affected, educational, and REAL.

This section brought me back to middle school. I went to a predominately white school and one of my best friends was biracial. There was a moment where she told me that a boy in our class told her she was not allowed to go to the 8th grade dance with him because she was half-black. Of course me and my friends supported her and tried to make her feel as best as she could in such a terrible situation, but we could never take back those words—-

“Charles didn‘t think too deeply about the morality of that kind of thing. What mattered was that these memes made his friends laugh…”

This is almost too real I feel like. I don‘t know who else has experienced bullying, I‘m sure everyone, but when it‘s so nonsensical from the bully, I think it‘s a way to step back and view it as—there is not thought about what they‘re doing, it‘s for the reaction of someone else. Whether it‘s attention from——

I love the way the book was written in small sections regarding specific details the author wanted to convey. I feel like this gave more clarity and straightforwardness that a lot of nonfictional books do not have. For example, I feel like a lot of these types of books run together and the details can be a lot to take in, but this definitely makes it easier to follow.

The author does well at portraying how nuanced this story is. She allows us to see the humanity of both those who were perpetrators of the hate page as well as those affected. This makes the story more real as compared to an informational piece like a short news article. The detailed accounts taken from the students allows the reader to empathize with those affected by the situation on a more personal level.

I have a problem with the letter that the parents of the perpetrators wrote in which they referred to the situation as a “teachable moment“. I feel like the phrasing of that statement is somewhat insensitive and downplays the significance of the situation. While their children should have learned something from the situation, this scenario should have never happened, and I feel like the parents should have acknowledged that.

I think Slater does a great job of tackling the different perspectives of the people involved. When I hear about situations like this, oftentimes I think about how this happened or the logic of the people. This book provides the insight I am often seeking. For example, I found it interesting that Charles admits that he knew what he was doing was wrong and racist, but he essentially cared more about being funny.

I liked this book because I feel like it does a great job of displaying the issues within the education system. Slater continually addresses how the perpetrators and people involved got minimal punishments and the victims were left to fend for themselves. I feel like we often hear about this dynamic in the news when something bad happens, but this is one of the first books I have read that addresses the situation while providing research.

The “Shame“ chapter is important because as teachers we need to find effective ways to redirect harmful behavior without shaming students. I work with the middle school group at my summer camp, and we had an incident a few weeks back where a group of girls were bullying another kid online. The girls were responsive to my “calling in“ and were very remorseful but completely shut down when the director shamed them and “called out“.

This was such a deeply impactful book and one that I would love to introduce to a class one day because of its very real and prevalent topic but also of the educational aspect and lesson it brings with it. I hope to revisit this book again as I feel that one read through doesn‘t do it justice. The story was extremely compelling and each step of how it played out had me hooked.

I LOVED THIS BOOK! I think it‘s something that every high schooler should read before they graduate because of the great presence that social media has on their lives. This book offers the chance for every student to have a moment of introspection into their mindset and shows them just how powerful their words and actions can be!

Another powerful component of this book is its nod to the power of a peaceful protest and how easily protests can get out of hand. I would love to show students this book to demonstrate that protest doesn‘t always have to be marching, waving signs,etc; that just sitting united in the atrium of a high school can show a universal, impactful front to those in power. What a wonderful introduction into the impact that high school students can have!

As I was reading this, it really shows me the difficulty in choosing and meting out whatever “justice” was called for. It highlighted how administrations can both back the right choice for a few, but yet the wrong choice for everyone else. That the precedent and implications of the set “punishment” often have detrimental impact or can be the most helpful thing ever. I loved how it showed that justice can mean different things to each party.

It‘s interesting how the more Charles was exposed to radical humor online, the more he normalized it. This reminds me of how in “What the Fact?”, it mentions how social media can lead to algorithms/recommendations that lead individuals to believe dangerous ideologies are acceptable or even normal.

I can‘t imagine the fear, self-consciousness, and self-loathing this hate account must have created amongst those who were targeted by it. When a part of your identity is targeted, it is a very nerve-wracking experience. What was posted was absolutely unacceptable and perverted.

This passage was so interesting to me. When learning about racism in school, I think there was a tendency on the educators' part to act like racism was a thing of the past when in fact, there are ways in which racism is worse in today's times. Now, as evidenced by this story, social media provides a whole different outlet in which racism can fester; now, acts of racism are still horrible thanks to gun violence, corrupt systems of power, etc.

I really enjoyed this book! I‘m not the biggest fan of nonfiction, but I was pleasantly surprised by this novel! I found myself really immersed in each and every person‘s perspective on the story. I think the author does a great job conveying these people‘s emotions and the effects cyber bullying can have on someone. Overall a great and impactful read!

At the beginning of this book, I wanted to make a post that talked about how I thought this informational chart, referencing friend groups of characters, was helpful. It was going to be pretty superficial. However, now that I have finished the book, I realize just how much friend groups can change; I realized, more importantly, how friend association matters. It matters just how interacting with a post on social media matters. Great book.

I love Slater's poetic creativity here. This poem is formatted and structured in such a way that the lines look like they are forming an hourglass - something that represents time. It demonstrates how much time and intentionality Slater had when doing this project. I also love the mix of poetry and prose throughout the novel - it keeps readers on their toes and makes it interesting for most everyone reading it.

Part 2 of the book talks about racial stereotypes. This is a big issue especially for African-Americans as we have the worst stereotypes. We‘re seen as lazy, afraid of water, loud. There are plenty of black people with successful careers including my family. I love to swim, and have been snorkeling. My family from Florida go scuba diving all the time. I‘m the quietest person I know and I have friends of different races.

This quote is so true. This book talks about the problem of racism we‘ve been facing throughout history. In today‘s society social media is a big influence and is where many people meet others, spread info, express opinions, and feelings, etc. I like how Slater described different social media accounts, who follows who, and the number of follows because it‘s a big deal in this day and age.

One thing I really like about this book is that it‘s told in multiple perspectives. This is a great way to see how this offensive account impacted everyone in this story. I believe this narrative choice was a great way to show how relevant racism is today and the psychological effects it can have on someone.

The narrative form allows the reader to see how something so clearly harmful and dangerous was overlooked and deemed as acceptable. The desire for peer acceptance, the “need” to post radical material in order to gain attention, and the friends who did not question the content but rather encouraged it all shows how this hate page was able to grow. It‘s important to be willing to call out hate, even if you‘re accused of taking things too seriously.

I'm a little over a third of the way through the book so far, and I like the narrative format Slater uses. The constant switches between telling the story, providing background information on the students' lives before the incident, and also providing factual information and research kept me engaged with the book. It also helps me sympathize with the students more because of how interconnected they all are and everything they've been through.

I love the narrative style of this book and in my mind it plays just like a documentary. The unraveling of each moment as the followers of the account return to school and their present day memory of it and what was going on in their head was so interesting to see. It showed how the ways they were perceived were so different from what they remember and how memory can be so tricky in those tense moments.

I love how the writer constantly switches formats throughout the book. For instance, I love when they write in verse or reenact text conversations. I found this to be very creative and engaging!

I already like this book more than What The Fact! This non-fiction novel is so much easier to read due to the author writing this in a story-telling narrative! I think that lots of high schoolers would like this book due to this fact.

There is a deep history to the racism being discussed in the book and the facts, lawsuits, context, and data that Slater includes alongside the narrative really adds to the nuances of what all was said. I feel like it‘s extremely educational both in the way of providing this essential history of racism and by showing the true story of how it‘s affecting these students.

A very impactful account about high school students in 2017 who were involved in an Instagram account created to post racist memes. Fast paced and very well written, Slater did an amazing job researching and writing. The creation of social media has severely shaped several generations and it‘s not getting better. My middle schooler will be reading this. Book #66 in 2024

Towards the end of part 1 of the book Slater describes how black people were murdered for stuff like being successful, buying property, or for just being themselves. As a black woman this makes me reflect on what my ancestors, grandparents, and parents had to go through. While racism is frowned upon today it‘s still prevalent as we see police brutality towards black men. We see discrimination towards people of color in the workplace.

People who are racist are some of the most malevolent people on earth. It‘s not right to mistreat people because of the color of their skin. This nefarious behavior is damaging to the targeted race. There is no excuse for mistreating a person for the way they look. We are all human beings and no race is superior or inferior.

Slater writes that “guilt focuses on the behavior [while] shame focuses on the person“ (pg. 248). In Part 8, things went from bad to worse when the protesters reverted to shaming the account followers rather than making them feel guilty for their actions. By focusing on shaming, the protesters inadvertently hindered any productive dialogue or potential for change, which further deepened the divide between the followers and the protesters.

I think this line from Part 3 serves as a basis for why the account followers' actions were harmful, no matter how involved in the account they were. By simply following the deeply racist account, they inadvertently endorsed its harmful agenda and contributed to the normalization and spread of racist attitudes and beliefs. Their complicity, whether deliberate or not, makes them accountable for the impact of the account's messaging.

This is an extremely powerful read and Slater does such a great job at handling the writing between the balance of acknowledging the gravity of the situation at hand and the real people behind it. It‘s captivating to read but also such a hard story to get through and it all creates conflicting feelings which really encapsulates the complicated nature of this story.

I absolutely love this book and the set up so far. There are so many interconnected characters and sometimes authors don‘t do a great job of keeping their personalities separated. That being said, I love how the author has clearly delineated proper space to get to know each and every character, regardless of how interconnected their actions are! I really believe that students would find aspects of each character to relate and identify with!

I really appreciate the nuanced perspective that this book is taking, both in relation to the kids who were perpetuating the Instagram account and the kids who were victims of it. I firmly believe that there are no “good“ or “bad“ people, and this book has done an incredibly admirable job at humanizing everyone within the situation. This particular quote, I think, does a great job of it.