Summary Of Outcasts United By Warren St. John

In the book Outcasts United, the author, Warren St. John, tells a story about a young Jordanian woman, Luma Mufleh, who founded a youth soccer program that consisted of the majority of young refugee boys now living Clarkston, Georgia. The teams consisted of players from the ages of nine to seventeen that were forced to flee their war torn countries and have since been relocated in apartment complexes in the Clarkston area. Luma’s purpose for starting the “Fugees” was to help keep these boys off of the streets and she hoped to help them build a better life in the United States. She knew what it was like coming from a completely different country. Luma came from her home country of Jordan to go to college but when she told her father that she

John includes in Outcasts United. The most belligerent example of this occurs in the chapter titled “They’re in America Now—Not Africa”. During this occasion, Officer Jordan pulled over an immigrant that came from Nigeria fifteen years earlier. Jordan accused the man, named Chime, of speeding and did not listen to a word Chime said. The officer slammed Chime against the car, hit him on the head with his metal flashlight, sprayed cayenne oil in his eyes, and insulted him. Chime was aware of his rights and he says that he did not do anything wrong. Chime believes that one “can’t have dark skin and a new car in Clarkston without harassment.” (St. John 83) Chime voluntarily came to the United States hoping to take advantage of the economic opportunity that was not available back home. At first, he lived in Queens, New York for six years but then moved to Clarkston because he thought it would be more open and accepting of a Nigerian immigrant. Chime is an innocent and young businessman who was not doing anything wrong when he was attacked by Officer Jordan. It is very disappointing and shameful that a police officer acted this way because of the color of Chime’s skin. In the article Race, Modernity, and the Challenge of Democracy, the author says that everyday racism cuts into the cultural fabric of modern life when one “takes account of the experiential realisation of its violence and divisive logics, tracking its multiple expressions, its media amplifications, and mapping an affective cultural economy of fear and hatred are some of the tasks to be undertaken in countering it.” (Chambers) Racism is a very hard and unfair concept to understand. It is hard to grasp the knowledge of why someone treats people with different skin color so badly for no reason other than the fact that they are