Riot Baby, though short, is powerful. It is a book that punches you in the gut with each of its 174 pages. 


It is the story of siblings Ella and Kev and how structural racism defines their lives, beginning in childhood. Kev is the Riot Baby, born during the LA riots of 1992, Ella the sister with mysterious powers. Their childhood is fraught with danger, and violence is an everyday affair. Somehow they survive into adulthood, when Kev is unjustly arrested and incarcerated, as so many young black men are in America.

The story fluctuates between Kev's experiences and Ella's. Ella too is incarcerated, trapped in the justifiable anger that consumes her. All her life she's had visions, and through them witnesses countless acts of police brutality against Black people. She also witnesses their oppression countless times in her everyday life.

My only problem with this book is that at times it moved around too much and many times it wasn't immediately clear if the scenario was actually happening or was a vision. Reality would become jumbled. Were we in the past, present, or future?

In passionate and at times poetic prose, Riot Baby reminds us of the many injustices and atrocities Black people face every day in America, a country that is steeped in structural and cultural racism. It is not a book to read if you want to cover your eyes, comfort yourself, and insist we live in post-racial times. 

The book ultimately leaves us with a glimmer of hope that things can get better and eventually will. It points out however, that change cannot happen if people remain silent. Riot Baby, though fiction, is a call to action on the part of everyone who cares.