For Khaliq, “here” is not just jail or the surrounding North Shore, with its rival gangs and drugs. “Here” is a borderless territory determined by whites and lived by Blacks. It is the defeat he sees in his father’s face, and even in his own. When a caseworker asks Khaliq how he wants to “be perceived,” the answer is that it does not matter. Society already sees him as “a thief, a trouble maker, and angry.”
