Thomas’s works deal heavily with the devastating consequences of racism and young people navigating the difficult waters of prejudice in their daily lives. Like The Hate U Give, Thomas uses On the Come Up to address the long-lasting impact of racial profiling on a child’s life. Bri struggles to find herself amid a tidal wave of other people’s opinions, and being a young Black woman comes with stereotypes that she struggles to break free from.

At the novel's beginning, Bri notices the school security guards eyeing Sonny and Malik, two young Black men. When it comes to these guards, Bri points out that “nobody wants to say it, but if you’re [B]lack or brown, you’re more likely to end up on their radar” (18). Like most of the teenagers from Garden Heights, Bri is still haunted by the murder of a young Black man that rocked the neighborhood the year before. This is a reference to the events of The Hate U Give. Even though the school security guards aren’t actual cops, they still make Bri nervous, and she wonders if “seeing that cop get away with murder [...] made them think they’re invincible too” (69).

Bri walks through a metal detector and doesn’t trigger any alarms, but the security guards still pull her aside and demand to see her bag.