Furthermore, Jamal encounters systemic racism as a child. Jamal would be called names during those first six years of his life. Those names would be ‘colored boy, dark boy, Negro, and nigger. Jamal would get jumped by the dark skinned boys because of his good looks. Jamal would hear growing up racial slurs, gang fighting the white boys, being smacked by the white cops, and hearing ‘Negroes ain’t sh**.’ It all seemed like a regular part of life growing up in the Bronx. “It seemed like everyone from the barbers, mechanics… felt the same way: black and white people were different, and life would always be a harder struggle because you were black” (18). This quote shows that Jamal experienced systemic racism at a younger age. He knows about it