“Something terrible happened on the 57 bus.”
In 2013, a non-binary teenager named Sasha Fleischman fell asleep riding the bus home from their private school in Oakland, California. Three teen boys, students at Oakland High School, boarded the bus, and as they horsed around together, one flicked a lighter under the edge of their skirt and set it on fire. Journalist Dashka Slater covered the story for The New York Times Magazine. Ali Velshi talks with Slater about her nonfiction book, The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives, born from her three-year investigation of what happened and the aftermath.
Slater plumbed a deep well as she investigated the story and began writing the book. Themes of racism, homophobia, classism and a broken legal system underpin the story. The 57 Bus portrays Oakland as a city defined by disparity in income, safety and opportunities.
Fleischman spent weeks in a burn unit for treatment of second- and third-degree burns. The teenager, Richard, was 16 and was charged as an adult. Reporters covering the trial couldn’t get straight how to talk about Fleischman’s identity. Richard was deeply remorseful for what he’d done, asking his victim and their family for forgiveness in letters after his initial sentencing.
Though this event occurred over 10 years ago and the book was published in 2017, much of what she wrote could easily have been written today.
“I certainly thought that perhaps ten years in the future, there wasn’t going to be so much concern for the safety of trans and gender non-conforming people,” Slater says. “I had hoped that we would have grown as a nation and become a more accepting place. And unfortunately, the reverse has happened.”
Listen to Velshi and Dashka Slater talk about the tragedy on the 57 bus
Watch Velshi and Slater on justice, racism, transphobia and … forgiveness
Velshi on banned books on MSNBC:
MORE FROM VELSHI’S BANNED BOOK CLUB
