Racism And Ambition Essay

Dreaming, a key tool to accomplishing anything in life, adds guidance to one’s life. From small-scale to large-scale, people accomplish things on a daily basis. What sets people’s dreams apart from each other? Ambition and commitment. As defined by the Oxford Dictionary, ambition is “a strong desire to do or achieve something.” Ambition and commitment coincide with each other because when a passionate dreamer commits to a goal they desire to achieve, the probability of success increases. An article about ambition states, “Only those who are truly committed will become a new and different person in order to live their commitment.” (Benjamin P. Hardy) This means that people who are determined to achieve will get there, no matter what the possible setbacks are. Cohesively, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Raisin in the Sun, and

American Denial provide examples of dreams from small-scale to large-scale. However, what determines the value of these dreams is not how elaborate they are or outsider’s opinions of their dream: it is how important success is to them, how they commit themselves, and how they override whatever obstacles stand in the way.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel compacted with racism, gender roles, and maturity, Scout has one dream which stays persistent throughout: she has a juvenile curiosity to see the mysterious Boo Radley. Scout, the dreamer of the Finch family, has obstacles that stand in her way; for example, her father disapproves of her quest and she fears what her journey might bring. Scout’s thrilling adventure deepens her ambition because in her eyes the search for her peculiar neighbor has risks; for example, what if his intentions are dangerous? In spite of these fears, she perseveres through these obstacles, and by the end of the story, her childhood dreams come true in an unexpected turn. “His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears ‘Hey, Boo,’ I said.” (Lee 362) When Scout finally reaches her dream of meeting Boo Radley, she becomes emotional with tears in her eyes. Her tears represent the persistence she contained within to accomplish her aspiration. After all the crazy events she faced in the story, she finally sees what she had envisioned for so long. She valued her ambition so highly in her life, that she becomes awestruck when she finally sees Boo. While the other members of Maycomb only saw her dream as an youthful phase, she saw this desire in a different light; Scout committed to her goal ultimately resulting with success.
Scout’s setbacks in To Kill a Mockingbird consisted of her fearfulness and lack of support from others; however, in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the obstacles include gender, race, and economic struggle on top of lack of support. The play’s main characters, an underclass black family, suffers from the absence of financial security. Beneatha, an unemployed 20 year-old, has ambitions of pursuing a career as a doctor, and given her conditions, her fantasy has a small probability of turning into a reality. By the end of the play, the fate of Beneatha’s career is left unknown. Despite this, her dream still has value because of the obstacles she potentially faces if she continues to pursue this career: her race, gender, and social class all lead her away from her ambition. In addition, she also has another obstacle she faces: she lacks support from her family. For example, “Well – I do – all right? – thank everybody! And forgive me for ever wanting to be anything at all! (Pursuing him on her knees across the floor) FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME, FORGIVE ME!” (Hansberry 37) Beneatha’s frustration with her family’s doubt in her abilities builds up and thus leads to her outbreak. She cries out in exasperation a sarcastic apology for her dreams. In this quote, Walter does not believe in her, but she has not given up yet which shows how much grit she has within to achieve. Her and her family are aware of their place in society, and while her family lets this walk on them, Beneatha’s stubborness to get what she wants could lead her in the right direction. She still has the chance to pursue this dream if she digs dip to find the ambition to achieve. Her gender, race, social class, and family doubts have not held her back, and if she commits herself the future looks bright for Beneatha.
On a larger scale, racism, a prejudice against one’s race or believing one race as more superior than another, has occurred for a long time and still happens today.

Many people have tried to stop racism in the past; yet, society has not eradicated this dilemma. In American Denial, people who have experienced prejudice against their race and people who have witnessed racism share their perspective. The film attempted to make viewers question their discrimination. The narrators hope to make people aware of their personal bias in order to solve this national problem. Social scientist David R. Williams says, “This is the frightening point: Because [implicit bias is] an automatic and unconscious process, people who engage in this unthinking discrimination are not aware of the fact that they do it.” Society must tackle certain obstacles: people believe themselves to be fair among different races, and deny their racism. The dream of ending racism is valuable because people’s determination to overcome it no matter what the obstacles come along the way. Conquering racism will take much more than one documentary, but this is a step in the right

direction.
People’s ambitions may have obstacles, but their passion to achieve overcomes whatever stands in their way. As shown in To Kill a Mockingbird, American Denial, and A Raisin in the Sun, the complexity of the dream does not determine its value. Each of the dreams varied in terms of how complicated or elaborate they seem to others, and all these dreams, however, come together in the sense that they all require(d) passion to achieve. With this, I find myself pondering a question to consider: is a dreamer’s heart born with the passion to achieve or do people acquire ambition throughout their lifetime? How can we find grit within to accomplish whatever we put our minds to? Michael Jordan once said, “Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” Finding the passion to achieve may not always have smooth sails, but commitment, dedication, and perseverance allows those who conquer their obstacles to succeed.