Life’s what you make it Can you imagine not being able to choose whether or not you want to be a part of a life filled with violence? Some people are just sucked into it because of choices other people make. For instance, Geoffrey Canada’s mom moved him & his three brothers into to the south Bronx where the journey of violence then began. In the memoir Fist Stick Knife Gun the narrator Geoffrey Canada goes through a series of events that eventually influences him to become the man he is today. Geoffrey Continues to reflect on his experiences and shows how he learned from them being that he grew up very poorly compared to an average kid in a rough neighborhood in the south Bronx where he went through a number of life-changing or eye
Geoffrey Canada does an excellent job of bringing his readers to the streets of the South Bronx and making them understand the culture and code of growing up in a poor, New York City neighborhood in the ‘50s and ‘60s. In his book, Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun, Canada details, through his own childhood experiences, the progression of violence in poverty plagued neighborhoods across America over the last 50 years. From learning to be “brave” by being forced to fight his best friend on a sidewalk at six-years-old, to staring down an enraged, knife wielding, “outsider” with nothing to defend himself but nerve, Canada explains the nightmare of fear that tens of thousands of children live through every day growing up in poor neighborhoods. The book
Have you ever felt safe somewhere, but realized your only protection was ignorance? In Jacqueline Woodson’s When a Southern Town Broke a Heart, she introduces the idea that as you grow and change, so does your meaning of home. Over the course of the story, Woodson matures and grows older, and her ideas about the town she grew up in become different. When she was a nine year old girl, Woodson and her sister returned to their hometown of Greenville, South Carolina by train. During the school year, they lived together in Downtown Brooklyn, and travelled to.
This altercation started when Coates became bored and disruptive in the class where it led to law enforcement being present to have more control of the situation (Coates 2008, pg. 141). Although Coates was a very bright intellectual, it is obvious to see that he was not present when in class but was very engaged with the world of books and music, outside of the classroom. Young Coates was not aware of the power of “knowledge” alone. He did not understand that without “conscious” of what is to be fought for. His mind was more focus on the lust for making his mark that he had not considered society’s view of a black male and where the origin of fear
An author’s metaphors demonstrate how the clothes an individual wears are used to disguise the fears an individual carries. Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me, is a personal literacy that Coates writes for his nephew, Somari. This book was intended to discuss physical safety
The reality of life can often differ from childhood to adulthood. Twelve-year-old Pablo Medina experienced this first hand. In the reflective essay, “Arrival: 1960,” Medina tells about his experiences of moving from Cuba to America. Upon arriving, his expectations for America are set high. Coming from the communism he saw in Cuba, Medina was expecting a land of freedom, apart from violence, and segregation; he was expecting an overall better life for himself.
What idea does the author develop regarding the conflict between pursuing a personal desire and choosing to conform? “Street lights glow red, green and yellow too, do you let signs tell you what to do?”... The words from Lady Gaga ponder over the balance between conforming to authority or self fulfillment. Do we let our individuality falter under the presence of authority and social demands, or do we maintain our own identity and achieve self-actualization? In a society where sacrifices have to be made in order to avoid prejudice, we show tenacity towards who we are at core.
Many people forget that African Americans in this country have been enslaved for longer than they have been free. Coates reminds his son to not forget their important history and that they will continuously struggle for freedom over their own bodies. They must learn to live within a black body. These struggles can be seen in the racial profiling and brutality among police officers in cases such as Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and countless of others. He goes on to describe his childhood and how fear was the root of black existence.
If people cannot think of their bond to mankind, the actions of a few are at risk of harming many. Within the community, no one knows each other; they are all confined to their individual lives, with little to no concern for others. When in Rear Window the dog is killed, its owner chastises the people in the apartment
Auriana Hollister @02823670 Between the World and Me “Between the World and Me” offered a powerful message that would allow for the reader to analyze their perspective of life. One of Coates powerful messages, that I received, from “Between the World and Me” is that there is a value in struggling, but no guarantee of survival (Ta-Nehisi Coates). For me, this is the most influential because it shows that not everyone has the blessing of making it out of their “struggle” and changing their story to success becoming some sort of success story. To go further in depth, “there is a value in struggling” (Ta-Nehisi Coates) speaks an enormous amount of volume itself. This statement can correlate to numerous people by showing the different outlooks they have on life and the way they value insignificant things.
Rhetorical Analysis Author Ta-Nehisi Coates in his book Between the World and Me discusses impactful racial issues in American history and educates his son on the past and current realities of being a black American. At the beginning of the book, Coates imposes the question: “How do I live freely in this black body?” (Coates 12).
Andy Warhol once said, “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself”. Change is affected by time and by people in different ways. A negative change can ultimately have a positive outcome. Change is not always bad, but in order for it to be good you need to make it good. Change occurs all the time, and it happens to everyone at one point in his or her life.
In The Living, a young adult novel by Matt de la Pena, the reader follows the main character, a teenage boy named Shy, as his quest to work over the summer for extra cash becomes a life threatening journey he never could have expected. In this novel three themes are very present in the forms of Romero disease, stereotyping, and the past versus present experiences. All of these topics arrive in very different ways, but can be traced back to not only Shy’s life experience, but Matt de la Pena’s as well. Though it is not always the main focus of the storyline, Romero disease plays a huge part in shaping the action.
A place where I could believe in the people and they believed in me. In turn, in Chapter 2 of his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire would propose the moment when individuals can fully become human is the moment that the human-world relationships begins to take shape. As a result, Freire would conceive that, “But since people do not exist apart from the world, apart from reality, the movement must begin with the human-world relationship” (9). Hence, there is a world of educational value that can be obtained by an individual who additionally opens themselves up to others. The individuals that they engage with by simply building a human relationship between themselves, the world that reflect their beliefs, and the works that inspired them to begin with.
Over the last fifteen years, I have grown mentally and socially. I credit my growth to my ability to analyze and understand the world for what it is. Social imagination is the use of information to understand the world and ourselves for who we are. Possessing the quality of mind that can develop reason and the capacity to shift perspectives are the basis of social imagination (Mills 2000). As I mentioned in reflection one, I came to realize that my way of thinking is what helped me overcome living a poor lifestyle.
