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How It Went Down Analysis

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It is hard to understand the struggle of another person that is forced to live in a society where they are seen as inferior to the societal norm due to uncontrollable circumstances. How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon is a story about a young African American male that is shot by a white American male. The story is made up a multiple accounts of the people connected to the lives of Tariq Johnson and Jack Franklin. These are real life accounts of the person 's emotions and their point of view on the incident. The big question of the entire incident is whether Tariq was armed or not, and the more we are exposed to multiple stories the further we are from the truth. In How It Went Down, Kekla Magoon strives to find a way to present the strength of a minority community through exposing their daily obstacles of living in a struggling …show more content…

When one is maturing, they absorb the environment around them and the actions seen around them become their habits. If one is surrounded around bad influences, these influences slowly create people who cannot morally decipher right from wrong and constantly make the wrong decisions. Thus, furthering them from society’s view of acceptable or equal. In How It Went Down, Underhill, the name of Tariq’s neighborhood, is named specifically to show the social divide in the community. Underhill was created by Magoon to serve as a symbol to people to show that this neighborhood is below others. As Tom Arlen exclaimed that he has “lived here twenty years, and I’ve never known a gunman in Underhill to walk away that easy, no matter the circumstances” Underhill serves as the figurehead for all neighborhoods that the world has lost hope on and has been left to fend for itself. When one is raised in such an environment where murder and theft are so heavily occurring. It is nearly impossible to focus on the important things that help you develop into a mature young

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