Stephanie Smith, our current graduate student, and Jalia Joseph, our former graduate student, current Assistant Professor at James Madison University published a book review at Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. They reviewed the book by Nora Gross titled "Brothers in Grief: The Hidden Toll of Gun Violence on Black Boys and Their Schools" published by University of Chicago Press in 2024.
Smith and Joseph, in their review, state that "Nora Gross’ Brothers in Grief is an enticing testimony functioning as an ethnographic eulogy to discuss the experiences of Black boys at Boy’s Prep, an all-boys charter high school in Philadelphia. The focus is not only on the catastrophic ways that the boys die but also on how those left behind were unarmed to deal with grief. Gross’ key point is poignant: grief is “generative and constructive if bravely supported” (p. 27). Grief is gendered, racialized, communal, and also connected to both individual and institutional experiences."
Gross' book is an ethnographic project combined with an analysis of students’ social media, schoolwork, and official school records. As Joseph and Smith put it: "Gross’ text is immersed in emotions, which often requires a moment of reflection and reprieve to adequately process the gravity of her words." The book starts with the discussion of what moved Gross to write the book: the deaths of three students while teaching in Chicago. In her own mourning, Gross witnessed the mourning of other students and realized her privilege as this was the first time she had experienced death of this severity while for others, it was a much more regular experience. The book is compelled to try to understand what does it mean when death is an everyday occurrence? What does it mean when loss is an expectation or routine?