The Other Wes Moore Role Model Essay

In The Other Wes Moore, male figures, specifically male role models, play an important part both Wes Moores’ lives and and are eventually what make or break their futures.
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Wes Moore, the author, had many important role models in his life that would eventually enable him to live up to his full capability. Uncle Howard, Wes’ mother’s brother, filled the hole that was left when Moore’s father died and when“[he] was eleven… and having difficulty in and out of the classroom [he could lean] on Uncle Howard’s shoulder”. Moore’s uncle was the man who convinced Moore that he could achieve more than just basketball at school, that education would allow him to reach his full potential. The persuasion to drop basketball as a career, enabled

Moore to focus on becoming a high ranking individual at Valley Forge Military Academy and, eventually, a Rhodes Scholar. While at Valley Forge, Moore met Captain Ty Hill, a peer who “[demanded]... much respect from his people”. Captain Hill made Moore realize that being a class clown caused a deterioration of respect and leader was an admirable title. The leadership and respect Captain Hill had built for himself trickled to Moore and made possible his admission into Johns Hopkins even though he had low test scores. The author Wes Moore had many male mentors that made it possible for him to become the well-rounded man he became.
Wes Moore became the jailed criminal due to the lack of positive male examples that influenced him in his daily life.

Wes was abandoned by his father soon after he was born and Tony, Wes’s brother, who was often at the Murphy Home Projects left Wes to be the “man of the house”. The absence of an older male figure made Wes more independent and, with Mary’s low paying job, made him have to provide for himself. Having to equip himself for day to day life built the base for Wes to experiment with the drug trade and, eventually, got him arrested multiple times. Tony wanted to keep Wes from the drug trade, in one instant he beat Wes up for being involved, but he knew that “his mission as a big brother was to toughen him up for the battles [he] knew Wes would have to fight as he got older”. As a young boy, Wes wanted to be exactly like his older brother, but as a hypocrite, Tony wanted Wes to stay out of the drug trade while he, himself, was deeply involved in the trade. The older Tony got, the more he realized how inevitable it was that Wes would engage in the drug trade. Once he realized Wes would become involved, he began to prepare him through fights and him protective advice. By being a drug dealer, Tony injured Wes’s future, and when Tony associated Wes with the jewelry store robbery, he destroyed Wes’s future. The men that influenced Wes Moore throughout his lifetime were the ones that made him the human destined to spend the rest of his life in

jail.