The addicts next door Meet the Gibson’s, an African family living in the south side of Chicago. It was 7 minutes after waking up. William was lying in the middle of his bed next to his pregnant wife Sharon shooting up meth like it’s a daily routine. His eyes were closed. The Gibson’s are black and a low-income family. Sophia the oldest daughter who tries to hold the family together since the age of ten. The young son Jack trades his math tutoring skills for sexual favors from neighborhood girls. Sophia the oldest daughter is also trying to get into an Ivy league school, and she can’t get into any trouble at school. Not having both your parents by your side or supporting you since the age of seven is pretty depressing especially if they’re …show more content…
That’s the day Sophia’s dreams shattered into pieces. That’s the same day William got caught trying to pay with fake money at a gas station. That’s the day he was sent to jail. Sophia knew she was never going to forgive William for ruining her dreams of going into an Ivy league school. She ended up getting suspended for a month from school. That month so much happened. The news about her father was all over the local newspaper which humiliated her. Sophia also walked in on Jake getting a sexual favor from a girl he was tutoring. That’s the day she couldn’t see Jake the same anymore. Sophia’s mom started to become even more stressed now that she was a single parent. She had no reason to, because if anything since day one Sophia has done nothing but to keep the family together. There’s a lot of things Sophia learned with the absence of her parents, and one of them was to be independent. Because of her parent’s mistakes, it created a passion in her- a passion to do things differently and for the better of her future. Although William, Sharon, and Jake put Sophia through so much, she became a strong woman. Sophia went through so much her whole childhood that she got tired of it by the age of eighteen. Sophia ended up going to college. She’s currently a freshman at the University of Texas A&M. She maintains good grades and a part time job after class. She says “my dreams are just growing and growing. One day, I will conquer more, possibly even attend New York
She sees her father old and suffering, his wife sent him out to get money through begging; and he rants on about how his daughters left him to basically rot and how they have not honored him nor do they show gratitude towards him for all that he has done for them (Chapter 21). She gives into her feelings of shame at leaving him to become the withered old man that he is and she takes him in believing that she must take care of him because no one else would; because it is his spirit and willpower burning inside of her. But soon she understands her mistake in letting her father back into he life. "[She] suddenly realized that [she] had come back to where [she] had started twenty years ago when [she] began [her] fight for freedom. But in [her] rebellious youth, [she] thought [she] could escape by running away. And now [she] realized that the shadow of the burden was always following [her], and [there she] stood face to face with it again (Chapter 21)." Though the many years apart had changed her, made her better, her father was still the same man. He still had the same thoughts and ways and that was not going to change even on his death bed; she had let herself back into contact with the tyrant that had ruled over her as a child, her life had made a complete
While she might think that her plans are working, they only lead her down a path of destruction. She lands in a boarding house, when child services find her, she goes to jail, becomes pregnant by a man who she believed was rich. Also she becomes sentenced to 15 years in prison, over a street fight with a former friend she double crossed. In the end, she is still serving time and was freed by the warden to go to her mother’s funeral. To only discover that her two sisters were adopted by the man she once loved, her sister is with the man who impregnated her, and the younger sister has become just like her. She wants to warn her sister, but she realizes if she is just like her there is no use in giving her advice. She just decides that her sister must figure it out by
In the high criminal neighborhood where the other Wes lived, people who live there need a positive role model or a mentor to lead them to a better future. Usually the older family members are the person they can look up to. The other Wes’s mother was not there when the other Wes felt perplexed about his future and needed her to support and give him advises. Even though the other Wes’s mother moved around and tried to keep the other Wes from bad influences in the neighborhood, still, the other Wes dropped out of school and ended up in the prison. While the author Wes went to the private school every day with his friend Justin; the other Wes tried to skip school with his friend Woody. Moore says, “Wes had no intention of going to school. He was supposed to meet Woody later – they were going to skip school with some friends, stay at Wes’s house, and have a cookout” (59). This example shows that at the time the other Wes was not interested in school. Because Mary was busy at work, trying to support her son’s education, she had no time and energy to look after the other Wes. For this reason, she did not know how the other Wes was doing at school and had no idea that he was escaping school. She missed the opportunities to intervene in her son’s life and put him on the right track. Moreover, when the author was in the military school, the other Wes was dealing drugs to people in the streets and was already the father of a child. The incident that made the other Wes drop out of school was when he had a conflict with a guy. The other Wes was dating with the girl without knowing that she had a boyfriend. One night, her boyfriend found out her relationship with the other Wes and had a fight with him. During the fight, the other Wes chased the guy and shot him. The guy was injured and the other Wes was arrested
Her struggles are of a flower trying to blossom in a pile of garbage. Growing up in the poor side of the southside of Chicago, Mexican music blasting early in the morning or ducking from the bullets flying in a drive-by shooting. Julia solace is found in her writing, and in her high school English class. Mr. Ingram her English teacher asks her what she wants out of life she cries “I want to go to school. I want to see the word” and “I want so many things sometimes I can’t even stand it. I feel like I’m going to explode.” But Ama doesn’t see it that way, she just tells, Julia, she is a bad daughter because she wants to leave her family. The world is not what it seems. It is filled with evil and bad people that just want to her hurt and take advantage of
The Curtis family is a very poor family ‘on the other side of town’ as a result of their father never having finished fifth grade and never being able to hold a job for more than a month at a time. The father, Ed, is a scruffy looking man, overbearing and built, and whose son, Darry,
James McBride is the son of Ruth McBride and is only one of twelve mixed race children. McBride delves into his mother’s closed off past. Something she never allowed herself to share with any of her children. He grew up in the projects. Growing up McBride did not understand his mother; he was embarrassed, and baffled by her. It was not until he was a grown man that he began to uncover the truth about the early years of her life and her long-repressed misery.
The inner city can be a good thing or a bad thing, for African Americans it is often a bad thing as they get caught up in gangs thinking that this is the only way they will have family. This is true in some aspects, because depending on the family, children can be abandoned due to drugs or be subject to violence. In the movie, one of the children, who lives around the pizzeria, is a little girl is abused at home. This often happens in broken homes, like the ones depicted by Spike Lee. In other cases children come from good homes. For example, if one comes from a prominent African American family, they know that everyone takes care of everyone, they work together to take care of each other. In the film, there are several older black men that act like grandfathers to the people on the block. This is reminiscent in of one of the class readings, Family M...
Her first week as a freshman college student reveals a lot about the culture of undergraduate college students to her. It shows her a completely different perspective of their lives since she’s a professor, and times have significantly changed since she was a freshman. Obviously, it is very hard for someone of Nathan’s
The film chronicles the histories of three fathers, and manages to relates and link their events and situations. First is Mitchell Stephens and his relationship with his drug-addict daughter. Second is Sam, and the secret affair he is having with his young daughter Nicole. He is somewhat of a narcissistic character because of his preoccupation with himself and pleasing himself, and his lack of empathy throughout the film for the others in the town. Third is Billy, who loves his two children so much that he follows behind the school bus every day waving at them. Billy is also having an affair with a married woman who owns the town’s only motel. On the exterior the town is an average place with good people just living their lives. But, beneath all the small town simplicity is a web of lies and secrets, some which must be dealt with in the face of this tragedy.
Life wasn’t always so bad, or at least that’s what they told me. From what I remember of my child hoods great memories my family speaks so highly of, if there were any at all, are all clouded in my mind by the what I can remember my life being. At times I find myself going thru old pictures of when I was a child and think to myself. Why can't I remember this day? I looked to be a happy healthy baby then my heart turns in a cold way. Growing up to a parent addicted to drugs and alcohol is no way for a child to be raised. I had to grow up at an early age and didn’t truly get to experience life the way a child should. My family tells me Marquise you were so loved by so many people and your Mom tried to do the best she
She feels guilty about leaving her father behind and not helping him, but she also feels guilt about not sharing her success with the others she left behind. The beauty she saw in being alone is now tainted with remorse, and the absence of the bustle of Hester Street gnaws at her. She is hurt and confused as to why she doesn’t feel the bliss she dreamed of form the gutter, and she joy at being a teacher is tainted by questions when she realizes “The goal was here,” with here being the position as a respected school teacher. She asks herself why she was “so silent, so empty” in the face of presumed achievement of her lifelong goal, her American dream (269). She is confused by the fact that the silence bothers her now, and that she is yearning for company. It is with a note of panic that she asks herself these questions regarding her emotional state, and it is because Sara is such a self-driven person that she doesn’t know how to respond to a nebulous feeling of dissatisfaction after her apparent victory. Sara is haunted by the suffering of the community she left behind, and she confesses that she didn’t want the rewards of achieving the American Dream “if they were only for [her]” (282). She misses her community from Hester Street, and wants to share the wealth with them in an attempt to feel the connections and family she had back then. She wants the reassurance and strength that comes with being a small part of a whole, and so she lets her father come back to fill a hole in her life. This completes the circle of Sara’s life story, in that she escapes her home on Hester Street and her father to make her fortune, she achieves this goal, but then
The two families were just some of those that really cared although all had different stand points and views they stuck to their beliefs and ended with more love for each other in the end than they ever started with. In the white family there was the conservative ex-marine father who loved his children dearly but wanted them to be well behaved and often was hard on them. The mother was more liberal housewife who stood up for her and her children’s opinions to her husband. The oldest son Brian was a football star in high school and later goes on to join the marines and fight in Vietnam. The middle child Michael was very liberal active anti war student who marched with the blacks in the Birmingham. The youngest Katie was a young 16 year old who loved to party and have a good time. The black family was a family of good hearts and lots of hope.
This movie takes place in Los Angeles and is about racial conflicts within a group of people which occur in a series of events. Since there are a wide variety of characters in this movie, it can be confusing to the viewer. In the plot, Graham is an African-American detective whose younger brother is a criminal. His mother cares more about his brother than Graham and she wants Graham to bring his brother back home, which in turn hurts Graham. Graham?s partner Ria is a Hispanic woman who comes to find that her and Graham?s ethnicities conflict when she had sex with him. Rick is the Los Angeles district attorney who is also op...
The story is told in first person through Tangy Mae Quinn, the darkest child of Rozelle Quinn. Rozelle is a light-skinned woman with ten children by ten different fathers, who separates her children based on skin color. She shows favoritism to her lighter skinned children and hatred to her darker skinned children. This is important because the story takes place in Parksfield, Georgia in the late 1950’s, right before the civil rights movement. It starts off with Rozelle Quinn teaching Tangy Mae how to clean her employer’s house because she believes she is going to die over the weekend. News of Rozelle “dying” spreads throughout the town and even beyond which brings her oldest child, Mushy, back into town. It is later revealed that Rozelle is only acting as if she is dying because she is pregnant. While in town, Mushy promises her siblings that she is going to save them from the abuse of Rozelle, but says Tarabelle has to be first due to Tarabelle’s exposure to prostitution. Months after giving birth to her child, Judy, Rozelle kills her by throwing her off the stairs. After this incident, the children slowly start to leave her although Tangy Mae and Laura stay by her side. After majority of her children have left, Rozelle is diagnosed with insanity and is forced to move in with Mushy. By the end of the story, Tarabelle is killed by a fire started purposely by her mother; Tangy Mae has graduated high school and taken Laura with her to cross the Georgia border.
Drug addiction is a very big problem in today’s society. Many people have had their lives ruined due to drug addiction. The people that use the drugs don’t even realize that they have an addiction. They continue to use the drug not even realizing that their whole world is crashing down around them. Drug addicts normally lose their family and friends due to drug addiction.