Let Me Hear a Rhyme

Quadir, who is an aspiring writer, often makes up fake headlines to describe what’s happening around him. Quadir’s headlines use his tone of speech and symbolize the absurdity of child murder as well as The Complexity of Grief. The newspapers don’t discuss Steph’s murder much at all, highlighting how the deaths of Black people are often ignored or downplayed by mass media. Even if the newspapers mention Steph, Quadir’s headlines emphasize the inability of the news to capture complex events like losing a best friend to murder. For example, one of Quadir’s headlines is “Slain Teen Leaves Friends Mad Confused” (48), which comes closer to capturing the truth than any newspaper’s headline would. News items often provide the community with useful information, but they rarely tell the full story of someone’s death, let alone the stories of those who mourn the dead. Another of Quadir’s headlines is, “Friends Nearly Die of Boredom After Teen’s Death” (48). This headline would also never be published, because its humorous tone would be inappropriate for an article informing the public about a death. However, the contrast between Quadir’s headlines and published headlines highlights the complexity of grief, because emotions like boredom can continue to exist even in the depths of grief. This doesn’t mean grief isn’t happening; rather, the boys’ boredom is intertwined with their grief, and they’re bored because they miss their friend.