Hope in Unseen: Overcoming Poverty and Racism

The "Hope in the Unseen" by Ron Suskind sheds light on many controversial issues today such as racism, personal struggles but also gives other students like Cedric the determination to push forward], I feel like this book has a raw and uncut perspective of growing up in a culture of poverty and succeeding despite this. In the beginning the whole thing felt very artificial and cliché to me. It felt like any other story about growing up in poverty. The fact that poverty has become so cliche makes this book all the more relevant. If you don't really understand what it’s like to go through what Cedric went through like financially struggling, living in a single parent home,with a violent community, and having a parent imprisoned. it’s much harder to empathize It’s much easier to ignore his culture

An encouraging, and hardworking mother but also a challenger. She challenged Cedric to rise above and to be and do better in life. Another thing that contributed to Cedric accomplishments is his internal encouragement to escape his community; the fact that Cedric had incentives to do better in life because he saw what could happen if he didn't. His peers and even some of his teachers weren't supportive of his achievements made Cedric want to leave even more. The author shows how Cedric overcame his hurdles in life but [it was interesting to see how he later uses this background as a crutch at Brown University; using the "poor urban black" kid identity as a justification for both his failures and successes. While it's important to embrace where you came from, it's also important that you don't find yourself in the same predicament. You have the ability to succeed despite your circumstances in life, just like Cedric. But you are also privileged with the ability to avoid some of the obstacles that Cedric face. You have access to more resources, more strategies, and more support than you may even