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Racism In Susan Ward's Ultima Injustice

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has faced the expectation and desire of his mother for him to become a priest and follow the Luna side of his family, however his father had wanted him to become a Marez, and to stay itinerantly on the plains. Evenly, he is torn between the Catholic religion and a more pagan religious belief represented by the golden carp. In the conversation, he conclusively understands that he does not have to pick one and discard the other, but can in fact incorporate elements of both opportunities into who he is as a person: "Then maybe I do not have to be just Marez, or Luna, perhaps I can be both--" I said... "Take the llano and the river valley, the moon and the sea, God and the golden carp--and make something new," I said to myself. This was what Ultima …show more content…

The abundant value of her provocative, concerning memoir is in exploring the psychological impact that racism could make on an individual, spreading a stain of self-doubt and self-hatred that, shared with lack of opportunities, abets black people in collectively destroying themselves all together. Drugs and violence, the disintegration of families and a range of other social difficulties are traced back to this common afflicted root. In Men We Reaped, Ward grapples with the self-condemnation: “We tried to ignore it, but sometimes we caught ourselves repeating what history said, mumbling along, brainwashed: I am nothing. We drank too much, smoked too much, were abusive to ourselves, to each other. We were bewildered.” Telling her family history between the stories of the boys’ deaths, Ward, despite her feelings of self-loathing, emerges as an exception in her beleaguered community. Uncommonly bright, she receives a private school education paid for by the family who employed her mother as a housekeeper. She goes to Stanford and wins numerous prizes at the University of Michigan, where she then studies creative

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