Pop Rogers Character Analysis

Jerome and Kim’s father, Pa is a sanitation officer who works long hours to help support his family. Though not as vocally anxious about Jerome and Kim as his wife Ma or Grandma, he betrays his fear for their safety in the way he silently checks in on them early every morning before he leaves for work—and in the way he warned Jerome to be wary of police officers and white people when Jerome was a young child. After a white police officer, Officer Moore, shoots Jerome because he mistakes Jerome’s toy gun for a real firearm, Pop at first demonstrates fiery, righteous anger at the injustice: he threatens to sue and challenges Officer Moore when Officer Moore claims that Jerome was a threatening presence. Yet after the judge at the preliminary hearing rules not to charge Officer Moore with a crime, Pop (like Ma) enters into a numb, mechanical depression that frightens Jerome as he haunts his family. Toward the novel’s end, however, emotional support from Grandma, Kim, and Jerome’s friend Carlos help Pop and Ma enter a healthier stage of grief.