Analysis Of A Hope In The Unseen By Ron Suskind

In this Story "A Hope in the Unseen" written by Ron Suskind, a young man, Cedric, has great deal of potential, that is stuck inside a school where it is hard for him to advance as far as a normal student in normal circumstances would. Cedric’s experiences at Ballou and Brown demonstrate racial issues currently under debate: white privilege, affirmative action, connections between race and poverty. Cedric, is constantly put up against odds that are not in his favor yet he strives to achieve so much in his life. Watching Cedric throughout the book, he experiences many triumphs and failures that most of us would never imagine having to deal with in our own lives.

Cedric’s experiences at Ballou High School in Washington D.C. were ones that no one should have experienced. Cedric was a honor student who had little to no friends, and only worried about his grades. An honor student at Ballou is very different then it is somewhere else because it is an inner-city school with very low resources. Having the ability to be one of those students

Cedric was very excited to head down there and really feel challenged with the academics there but he had no idea what to expect. The summer classes started and Cedric really noticed how behind he was compared the white kids who were very fortunate. Feeling out of place and foolish, he isolated himself from everyone else in the program. At the end of the summer Cedric had a meeting with professor Trilling to discuss his future there and Trilling said, he was not MIT material “”And it [grades] just doesn't seem to be enough”” (96). In Cedric’s mind, that made him think the only reason he was not MIT material was because the professor was racist (97). Leaving MIT that summer made Cedric really question himself though. Was the color of his skin holding him back? Was he ever really going to be accepted? Am I even that