Letter To My Son Synthesis Essay

My understanding of the American Dream has always had a positive connotation, until I reached junior year. My definition of the American Dream was that every person in the United States had an equal opportunity to make a difference and in doing so got to live a happy life. Up until my junior year, I have been blinded by the color of my skin to see a different perspective on life in America. Although I knew that I am privileged, I could not fully comprehend how people of different races and ethnicities lives could be different than mine. Once I began reading the texts assigned from the American Dream unit, I woke up from the dream that everyone had comfortable lives in the United States. One text that really stuck with me was “Letter to My

The synthesis essay assignment allowed me to explore all of the different works our class explored during the course of the American Dream unit. I focused on racially charged police brutality, a central theme in “Letter to My Son.” The quote that stuck out the most was, “Dad did what every parent I knew would have done-he reached for his belt… Later I would hear it in Dad’s voice-’Either I can beat him, or the police.’ Maybe that saved me” (Coates 85). In response to the quote, I argued in my synthesis essay that, “Coates asserts that parents have to beat their children if they do something wrong because that will save them from the beating they could have received from the police. The fact that black parents feel as if physically hurting their children will save them from a violent encounter with the police is the reason racially charged police brutality is a known issue” (Racially Charged Police Brutality). The American Dream truly needs to be refined if black parents beat their children because of their fear of their children being beaten by the police. Clearly the American Dream’s definition includes racism and police brutality, which connotes America’s nation credo, “all men are created