Ibi Zoboi & Yusef Salaam Talk About the Story Behind ‘Punching the Air’ in this Powerful Video

Yusef Salaam: Five brutes have brutally raped a white woman in Central Park. Didn’t matter that there was no evidence. It didn’t matter that the DNA was not linked to anyone who they saw as a suspect.

Ibi Zoboi: There was a lot of confusion at that time because you kind of knew that those boys were innocent.

YS: We all knew it was false, but we were the ones that went to prison for those crimes. I’m Yusef Salaam and I’m one of the Exonerated Five.

IZ: My name is Ibi Zoboi and I am the co-author of Punching the Air.

YS: Punching the Air is a book based on my life story, the journey that we as young men of color had gone through in America since we came to these shores. Slavery continuing by another name. In 1989 I was one of the five young men known as the Central Park Five. We were railroaded by a system that saw the color of our skin as opposed to the facts of the case and oftentimes that’s what these stories are about.

IZ: That case left an indelible mark on me because it framed how I viewed other Black boys in my neighborhood in my community and in my classroom and it took a long time for me to understand what the criminal justice system is and the historical relevance of injustice and seeing Black children as criminal.

YS: It wasn’t until 13 years later that the truth actually came out because the system got it wrong and it continues oftentimes to stand on the side of wrong. Ibi and I reconnected with each other years after we were in Hunter College together.

IZ: When he told me that he wanted to work more closely with young people we decided that we should tell his story. Punching the Air is the story of 16 year old Amal Shahid who is an artist and poet. After one heated moment one fateful night he is accused of a violent crime and sent to prison. From there we learn how he ends up coping, how he uses his art to find his voice and to just deal with what’s happening on the inside.

YS: It’s the exploration of the two Americas, separate and unequal. We wanted to explore that a bit in Amal’s character because like me, he now is a young man fighting the system, becoming unfortunately awakened to what I call the American Nightmare.

I am ink. He is paper.

I am pencil. He is notebook.

I am text. He is screen.

I am paint. He is canvas.

I am man. He is boy.

I am criminal. He is victim.

I am alive. He is almost dead.

I am black. He is white.

YS: One of the things that I wanted to bring into this story in a very real way was the connection that family has to these individuals. Oftentimes you may see a person going through a trial and don’t realize that they are a part of community. They are a part of family. I didn’t go through prison myself. My family was there, my brother, my sister, my aunts and uncles, my mother was there all the time. And oftentimes she went through a worse prison than I went through.

IZ: I am a mother of teens. I am a mother of a Black boy, so I understand the vulnerability of children when they make the wrong choice. This is not necessarily a story about a crime and it’s not necessarily just about race. It is about a boy contending with himself and finding hope and healing through his art.

YS: You know, when I was in prison one of the things that really helped me was art. It was that medium that I had always loved that allowed me to really become a master of art and get lost in the page. You know, with Amal I wanted him to also speak to what we are experiencing in this country that the Arts have been taken out of schools. His artistic expression is not given the value that is needed. When children are told that they’re worthless they begin to think that they were born a mistake.

IZ: While Black people are only about 13 percent of the U.S. population Black men are 34 percent of incarcerated individuals in the United States and that’s a huge disparity.

YS: We explore the school-to-prison pipeline in the book and it’s one of those things where you start saying to yourself, “how is that possible?” But then you realize through the data that they actually plan how many prisons to build based on the 4th grade. And so, if the test scores in the fourth grade is a precursor as to how many prisons need to be built—that’s a scary space to be but that is an actual fact.

There was no

in-between time

to say goodbye

I went from

kid to criminal to felon

to prisoner to inmate

 

We’re moved from

the county jail

and onto a bus

and from the bus

we’re going to the

juvenile detention facility

 

There are two guards on the bus

one in front, one in the back

and this almost feels like a field trip

almost

 

Except

the quiet is choking my ears

The absence of voices

is like cold hands wrapping

their icy fingers around sound

And

maybe there was never

this much room on

slave ships

YS: The thing about Amal that we wanted to bring out and expose is how he is aware, he’s able to give speech and idea and thought to these things that are showing up in the world today. That Black is seen as ugly whereas white is seen as good. He had this awful experience, but he had been having awful experiences one on top of the other that were constantly trying to tell him to keep in a box. But one of the biggest things that I want young readers to know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that they matter, is that we need you. We need you to step up to the plate. We need you to participate. We need you to realize your greatness. You are the hope of the future. And once you realize that, the future is brighter.

The future becomes alive and well.

One of the greatest feelings of being able to share my story through this character Amal, it’s like a brilliant way to be a gift that keeps on giving, to be able to add to the struggle in a manner that isn’t my story but is the story of others. That gives life to their stories, that gives value to their stories. But also I think one of the best things about this story is that on the front cover of this book is a teenager. A young person, a child. But then you hear that is being told through the mind and eyes and heart of a person who actually survived this tragedy to lift up and to pull up and to pull through others who may be going through a struggle. And to give them hope.

 

About Punching the Air

From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, and Elizabeth Acevedo.

The story that I thought

was my life

didn’t start on the day

I was born

Amal Shahid has always been an artist and a poet. But even in a diverse art school, he’s seen as disruptive and unmotivated by a biased system. Then one fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighborhood escalates into tragedy. “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.

The story that I think

will be my life

starts today

Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal’s bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?

With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both.

• Buy Punching the Air now!