Character Analysis: The Other Wes Moore

In life, there are many possible roads that a person can take. Some may be smooth and lined with gold bricks and success, and some may be bumpy and paved with dirt and frustration. The things that a person does in their lifetime that leads to the end of the road comes along with many accomplishments and even more failure along the way. There are some things that can prevent these defeating things from happening such as a good supportive family and having role models in life. As exemplified by the memoir The Other Wes Moore, the author suggests that regardless of environment, lives can end up entirely divergent due to family support, choices and consequences. There are a lot of instances in this book where both Wes Moore’s have made bad decisions

Wes the author continuously skipped school due to boredom and the other Wes skipped school to use and deal drugs. This constant skipping of classes got both Wes’s suspended from their school but both of their stories ended differently. Wes the author got academic-suspension for how bad his grades were and his mother, Joy, decided to put him in military school due to this. Military school changed his life for the better and made him a more respectful and hardworking person. The other Wes got suspended for wrestling a boy in 6th grade and later dropped out of highschool. He then got into drugs, and other illegal things which ultimately landed him in jail multiple times. Both Wes’s got suspended through the school-to-prison pipeline which Elias, from the “School-to-Prison Pipeline,” by Marilyn Elias, illustrates that minority students and students with disabilities are more likely to end up incarcerated through the school-to-prison pipeline. “They are policies that encourage police presence at schools, harsh tactics including physical restraint, and automatic punishments that result in suspensions and out-of-class time are huge contributions to the pipeline” (Elias 2). A dismal 38% of students graduate from high school in Baltimore city, and if there wasn’t this policy constricting students from getting an education, then maybe more children that are struggling just like the Wes’ will be able to graduate and not have to make other decisions that end them up in bad