Have you ever looked at life from a different perspective? In Daskha Slater’s nonfiction book The 57 Bus, we are shown a real-life crime that happened in 2013. In the book there are two main characters; the first one is Sasha, an agender/non-binary affirming teenager, who suffered from their skirt being burned. The second one is Richard, a 16-year-old black teenager, who sets Sasha’s skirt on fire and admits to it by saying that he’s homophobic. All of which made him not only guilty of a crime, but a hate crime on top of it. Slater used her writing ability to tell the stories of these characters and others. She tackled topics such as teen pregnancy, gender identity, and racism concerning the justice system. After reading the book, many people are quick to sympathize with …show more content…
By implementing this, Slater puts us into the seat of someone who isn’t part of a heteronormative society. As the book continues, Slater seamlessly transitions into Richard’s perspective, offering insight into his background, motivations, and struggles. By humanizing Richard, Slater challenges readers to confront their biases and preconceived notions about perpetrators of hate crimes. Through interviews with Richard, Slater reveals the complexities of his character and the societal pressures that influenced his actions. Richard’s perspective adds depth to the narrative, prompting readers to question the single story that is often perpetuated by the media and modern society. When spending time in a juvenile hall because of the incident, “Richard turned eighteen in Alameda County Juvenile Hall, just before being transferred back to Chad. Individual birthdays aren’t celebrated in Juvenile Hall, so it was a day exactly like any other day. Richard was used to that by now. He hadn’t spent a birthday at home since he’d turned fourteen.” (Slater
In “Who Shot Johnny” by Debra Dickerson, Dickerson recounts the shooting of her 17 year old nephew, Johnny. She traces the outline of her life, while establishing a creditable perception upon herself. In first person point of view, Dickerson describes the events that took place after the shooting, and how those events connected to her way of living. In the essay, she uses the shooting of her nephew to omit the relationship between the African American society, and the stereotypic African American society.
Observing masculinity: Masculinity affects the lives of these boys, from the expectation of violence. Youth Demographics: Neighborhood with high violent-crime rates and had sibling or friends who had been previously involved with crime. (Punished: Policing the lives of Black and Latino boys, PG 14&17) The purpose is for society to have a depth understanding to how these young boys try, so that there not punished as youth; rather create opportunity and understanding rather than constraining
Criminal justice institutions in Oakland challenge masculinity as a means of rehabilitation. For instance, from a boy’s perspective, being a man involves standing up to peers who challenge self-confidence. This results in law breaking and violent fights, which can create opportunities for arrests. On the other hand, probation officers believe that being a man involves obtaining an education to support your family. However, by living in a poor neighborhood where punitive social control is ratified, the boys can hardly find employment. Thus, it generates hypermasculinity, which “often influenced the young men to perpetrate defiance, crime, and violence, sanctioning police to brutalize or arrest them” (p. 138). To reiterate, probation officers tell the boys to “get a job, do well in school and stay out of trouble” (p. 139). But the odds of succeeding are low, because “most avenues of legitimate success were out of reach” (p.
In his observation of the boys, he finds that these boys are criminalized by many social forces besides the police. “I found that schools pushed out boys who had been victimized.” (pg. 6). Many boys feel that their school system blames them for crimes that have occurred in their area, or as a danger to other students in the classroom. These boys think that these experiences of victimization are part of their street life. Rios says that if the institutions of social control believe that all young people follow the code of the street, then programs and interactions with margined youth’s will be based on this false information. This dishonest perception of youth is what leads to their
Brent Staples and Richard Rodriguez’s autobiographical essays both start out with a problem, but they deal with it in different ways. Brent Staples’ “Just Walk on By” deals with the issue of racism and social judgment he faces because he is African-American, while Rodriguez’s essay “Complexion,” details the self-hatred and shame he felt in his childhood because of his skin color. Both of these essays deal with race, appearance, and self-acceptance, but the authors write about them in different ways. When looking at the similarities and differences together, the points of these essays have a much stronger message about how to deal with discrimination.
Stereotypes within our society have shaped the way we perceive each other. Throughout the book Punished by Victor Rios, a lot of stereotypes were not only reinforced but also used against a lot of the boys. A lot of the boys presented throughout the book had never actually committed a crime but they were treated as if they had. These boys were constantly labeled and categorized, like folders into a filling cabinet or a bin. Sure Oakland, California had a lot of gang-infested areas but that does not mean everyone in that area is part of a gang or is committing a crime. Thus, this book really demonstrates how one can be perceived or labeled as a criminal due to his or her surroundings and how these stereotypes can destroy one’s chance of freedom.
“The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal” by Jonathan Mooney is the story of his journey around the U.S. in short bus nonetheless to meet with different children and their families who have faced challenges in school due to ADD, ADHD, Autism, and other learning disabilities. Jonathan Mooney himself faced the disability of Dyslexia and often had to deal with many challenges in school himself, but he appears to be one of the more fortunate ones, who was able to grow from his disability and ultimately get a degree in English. Needless to say, his book and journey lead the reader to question what really is “normal”, and how the views of this have caused the odds to be stacked against those who don’t fit the mold. Throughout, this story, for me personally however, this story gave several events that I found moving, and had the potential to influence my further work in education.
Jackson Katz is the founder of Mentors in Violence Prevention which is an education program that has been focused on military and sporting organizations in attempts to put a halt on gender violence. Other than being an educator, Katz is also an author and filmmaker. In 2013, he produced the film Tough Guise 2. In this film, Katz reviews the normalization of male jurisdiction in America. The film looks at the messages of gun violence, sexism, and bullying that are sent to men throughout their entire life. Tough Guise 2 argues the statement that male brutality is a rooted back to our cultural standards of manhood. A pivotal point of the film is that a male’s masculinity is not just handed to them, it must be earned. During the course of the film, this point is supported by examples such as gun violence, homophobic messages and mass shootings.
The way Staples structures this essay emphasizes his awareness of the problem he faces. The essay’s framework consists mostly of Staples informing the reader of a scenario in which he was discriminated against and then following it with a discussion or elaboration on the situation. This follow-up information is often an expression stating comprehension of his problem and than subtitle, logical criticisms toward it. For example, Staples describes women “fearing the worst of him” on the streets of Brooklyn. He then proceeds to declare that he understands that “women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence.” Staples supports this statement with information about how he had witnessed gang violence in Chester, Pennsylvania and saw countless black youths locked away, however, Staples pronounces that this is no excuse for holding every young black man accountable, because he was an example of a black man who “grew up one of the good boys” coming “to doubt the virtues of intimidation early on.” This narrative structure highlights that Staples is not a hypocrite because he is not show ignorance toward the problem he is addressing unlik...
Throughout history, as far back as one could remember, African- American men have been racially profiled and stereotyped by various individuals. It has been noted that simply because of their skin color, individuals within society begin to seem frightened when in their presence.In Black Men and Public Space, Brent Staples goes into elaborate detail regarding the stereotypical treatment he began to receive as a young man attending University of Chicago. He begins to explain incidents that took place numerous times in his life and assists the reader is seeing this hatred from his point of view. Staples further emphasizes the social injustices of people’s perception of African-American men to the audience that may have not necessarily experienced
Touching upon one specific case of this growing problem, she incorporates “Michael Brown,” who was an “18-year old unarmed black man shot down by a white police officer.” As heartbreaking as it sounds, it has happened on several occasions to men similar to “Michael Brown.” Accordingly, Myers formulates that it “is the same story. It is just different names.” Myers logically lists the other names of several black men who unfortunately fell victim to hate crimes, (Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin), as well as flashing their images on the screen. Not only does Verna Myers use imagery in order to show that there is an evident issue with brutality and racism, but she knows it will tug on her viewers heartstrings. Likewise, this makes her audience become wary and sympathetic towards the situation at
He creates this tone to convey his purpose to the reader which is that prejudice is still an ongoing problem in American society, and that it will never be a thing of the past. Staples gives many personal anecdotes that are very somber; the readers are affected by this because they can emphasize and feel the prejudice that the victim, Brent Staples, faces. Although Staples is never delighted with the positions he is in, he never shows his resentment. In one part of the article, Staples said, “It is not altogether clear to me how I reached the ripe old age of twenty-two without being conscious of the lethality nighttime pedestrians attributed to me.” (Staples, 2). Staples attributes that he knows many people in American society automatically assume that he is a threat to “their” society because of
... It should be understood that Morrison's novel is filled with many characters and many examples of racism and sexism and the foundations for such beliefs in the black community. Every character is the victim or aggressor of racism or sexism in all its forms. Morrison succeeds in shedding light on the racism and sexism the black community had to endure on top of racism and sexism outside of the community. She shows that racism and sexism affect everyone's preconceived notions regarding race and gender and how powerful and prevalent the notions are.
Brent Staples focuses on his own experiences, which center around his perspective of racism and inequality. This perspective uniquely encapsulates the life of a black man with an outer image that directly affects how others perceive him as a person. Many readers, including myself, have never experienced the fear that Staples encounters so frequently. The severity of his experiences was highlighted for me when he wrote, “It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto.” (135) Having to accept that fact as a reality is something that many people will never understand. It is monumentally important that Staples was able to share this perspective of the world so others could begin to comprehend society from a viewpoint different from their
Similarities and difference with The Graduate vs. Risky Business I viewed two films and I intend to show you how these films have more similarities than differences. In the film The Graduate directed by Mike Nichols starring Dustin Hoffman, Anne Brancroft, and Kathreine Moss (1967) and Risky Business directed by Paul Brinkman starring Tom Cruise, Rebecca De Mornay and Joe Pantoliano (1983) both of which are comedy, drama, romance genre. I will explore and show you that there are more similarities than differences. The first similarity is the leading roles are young adolescent men who are either are just graduating high school and or college who are confused, have a loss of innocence, some crazy unique sexual fantasies while both main characters are inexperienced about sex.