Black In America

I thought that the Black In America documentary really helped me get closer to understanding how the problems of racism in America are affecting people. I never thought that racism was this much of a problem anymore but I guess that it still is. The fact that only 3% of management jobs were given to African Americans really surprised and bothered me. It never really comes to my mind that black skin could be a deal breaker for getting a job. I do understand that the amount of African American graduates is a pretty low number but I didn’t think that it was low enough to cause the amount of African American managers to be as low as 3 %.
Another statistic that really bothered me was the one about the amount of African Americans that will grow up with no father. This statistic doesn’t deal with racism but is still a big problem that needs to be fixed. It’s hard believing that 60% of African American children will grow up with no father. The father that was in the video seemed like he didn’t care about his child at all. I didn’t feel bad for him at all I more felt anger towards him for acting the way he was. He showed no care at all towards his child and you could tell that he didn’t. The way that he responded to the reporter made it seem like he wasn’t even bothering listening to her. It just frustrated me how someone could just abandoned two human beings like that and only go into their lives when they feel like it. It’s hard to even imagine what growing up like that would be like; thinking that your own father left because of your birth.
60% of African American high school dropouts was another fact that disturbed me. I can’t believe that that number could be so high because not all dropouts are going to end up being criminals. The fact that the video brought up about African Americans being suspected of doing crimes does seem to explain part of why that number would be so high. I don’t think that that many cops go through the trouble of planting evidence on African Americans just because they don’t like their skin color. The video did make another point that explains why the number of dropouts is so high. The media is depicting African Americans in a negative way whether it be through music videos or the news. It was surprising seeing that the news would rather do a story on an African American doing one crime rather a Caucasian doing the same exact crime.

LAST DAYS OF SUMMER

Although the novel “Last Days Of Summer” has been styled in a different way than normal books, it still made sense and got the point over. I liked the way it was organized because while I was reading each conversation I felt as if I were one of the characters in the book. It was sort of like I was Joey when reading Charlie’s letters and that I was Charlie when reading Joey’s letters. When reading I really didn’t feel like I was reading a book but more looking back at the conversations that I had had. At times it was good but it sometimes got confusing like when an event happened. This was harder to follow because you weren’t at the event; you only had what Joey and Charlie had said about the event so you had to piece it together to form the image that the author was trying to portray. This was confusing but after reading for a while you got the picture. This happened to me during the one part in the story where Charlie went to visit Joey. The story just jumped from them talking about hanging out to them talking about how they had already hung out. After a couple of pages you got the gist of what happened but everything was told in order of importance to them instead of the order that it had happened that night. As the book went on you got used to putting all of the stories together though. The conversations that Joey had with his psychiatrist were also told in a different way than the traditional novels. Their conversations were more like reading a play. The author did do good job though in making you feel as if you were Joey talking to the psychiatrist. The way that the novel was told kind of reflected who Joey was as a person. Joey was this unique kid that was different from everyone else; just as this novel’s form of writing was different than traditional novels.
The beginning of the novel was very confusing. It starts out with random facts about people that you don’t really get to know until the books starts to come together. The author doesn’t really tell you who is writing or why he’s writing. He even had Joey at the psychiatrist with the reader having hardly any idea why he is there. It is in this meeting though in which we learn that Joey is not the typical kid. He is this smart-alecky boy who knows a lot more than people would expect for someone his age. As the book goes on you see Joey progress into more of an adult and you see him start to control himself and learn important life lessons. Some of the things that Joey does doesn’t seem like it has any importance at all but later in the book he’s usually right about it. For example, the downstairs neighbor that Joey and his friend thought was a Nazi really turned out to be one. To the reader it looked like something funny that the two of them were doing but it actually turned out to be something legit.