In this quote, Wes Moore, the author, explains that it is his first morning at Valley Forge Military Academy, in Pennsylvania, which Joy had sent him to after he was put on academic and disciplinary probation at Riverdale. On the same day he was put on probation, Wes was sitting next to Shani at home, punching her arm out of boredom. At one point, he misses and splits her lip open. Infuriated, Joy slaps him across the face, and for a moment it seemed as if Wes might hit her back. Joy breaks down in tears, scared that she is “losing” her son. Life at the institution is strict and draining, requiring a great level of discipline. The new arrivals (plebes) are treated as “less than nothing,” and their first names and life stories are never mentioned. …show more content…
The map was completely fake. The boys take Wes to the office of Colonel Battagliogli, a respected and enthusiastic retired Army officer in charge of the plebes. Colonel Battagliogli tells Wes that he will allow him to talk on the phone for five minutes. Wes calls his mother and instantly begins to apologize for his past behavior and begs to go home. Before he can finish, Joy cuts him off and tells him that he is not going anywhere, his family is proud of him and have already sacrificed too much for him to be there. At the time Wes doesn’t understand his mother’s words, but years later learns that Valley Forge is even more expensive than Riverdale, and that his mother was forced to write to family and friends for help in paying the fees. After some time, Wes’s grandparents decided to use their retirement savings in order to pay for Wes’s first year at Valley Forge. Joy repeats that she loves him and is proud of him and that “it’s time to stop running.” This quote is significant because Wes’s brief conversation with his mom reminded him that it is more than just his own personal experience at stake. His entire community has made sacrifices in order to support him in making a
Based on both Wes Moore’s decisions it took them a while to realize the importance of their future, although the other Wes Moore had a tough time learning from his past mistakes. By the time the author was in military school, he understood that his previous choices weren’t beneficial and his actions were the reason why Joy made the choice to send him off to
Living Out by Lisa Loomer is a play that tells the story of the complicated relationship between a Salvadoran nanny and the lawyer she works for. Both women are smart, hard-working mothers who want better lives for their children. The play explores many similarities and differences between them. Through the main character Ana, we understand what it’s like to leave a child in another country and to come to come to the United States. We also get what the potential cost is like to sacrifice your own child in order to care for someone else's. Through the lawyer; Nancy, we understand the pressure on women today. How they try to do everything perfectly and sometimes having to put work before their family. The play also looks at the discrimination and misconceptions between Anglos (White American’s) and Latinos.
The mothers, Mary and Joy, push their sons to achieve an education in different ways. Mary, Other Wes’s mother, enrolls him in public schools and expects him to take control of his life and work hard. This arrangement does not work favorably; Other Wes stopped attending to school two years before he graduated high school. He eventually received his GED from Job Corps. On the other hand, Wes’s mother, Joy, enrolls her son in private school to avoid the public schools in the area. First, she sends him to Riverdale. Wes hates it there. He got suspended numerous times and let his grades slip. He was in charge of his own fate at Riverdale, but he botched it up. Finally, Joy sends Wes to military school. He is given a second chance, but “by the end of the fourth day at military school, [Wes] had run away four times” (90). Eventually, after an abrupt phone call, he agrees to stay. He embraces military school, and thrives there. He has the chance to escape Other Wes’s fate, which even Wes agree could have been his own. He may have had no choice but to leave to military school, but his success there is up to him. While Wes was sent away to avoid the ghetto’s problems, Other Wes is right at the center of
The first personal traits that Coach Dale was forced to exhibit were his toughness and his assertiveness. On his first night in Hickory he met the men of town in the barbershop who were all willing to provide their experience and insight on the team and how to coach. Coach Dale had enough self confidence to know that none of these “insights” were going to help the Hickory team win basketball games and let them know they weren’t welcome by turning his back and walking out. Additionally, he was forced to demonstrate his toughness twice more on the first day of practice by telling the temporary coach, “Secondly, your days of coaching are over,” and then by standing up to the group of men after he dismissed Buddy from the team. These actions made no friends of the men; however, th...
Joy did whatever it took and sometimes it meant not letting Wes leave military school to come home. She stood her ground and wanted to make him a better person, so she made him stick it out. She also valued her kids education so much that she did all she could which meant working multiple jobs just to keep them out of the public schooling system. If Wes didn’t have the support of his mother, he would of turn out like the Other Wes that was in the story and he mostly likely would have gone to jail
The boy was from Chicago. Negroes up North have no respect for people. They think they can get away with anything" pg. (132) this quote was said after Emmett Till was shot for whistling to a white girl. Anne did not believe that was right and gave her a terrible fever in light of the fact that blacks were treated unfair and unequally. Due to this event Anne learned about the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) from Mrs. Burk who was talking bad about them. Then the death of Samuel O’Quinn changed Anne’s view on the harshness of racism in Mississippi. Samuel O’Quinn was killed because he was trying to recruit black loyalist for the NAACP. A reward of five hundred dollars was given to whoever kills Samuel. This scared Anne later when thinking about joining this group when she is in college. Events that even happened once she got older example, the murder of Medgar Evers, and the church bombing in Birmingham helped charge Anne’s fire to become an activist the fight for the rights of blacks.
This makes sense because Wes(a) explains his experience at Valley Forge as, “... leadership was honored and class clowns were ostracized…” If a level of authority expects a certain standard of you, you are inclined to uphold that standard for them. Expectations are exercised universally as well on the streets of Baltimore where Wes(p) grew up. His older brother, Tony Moore had high expectations for Wes that were unfortunately never fulfilled; “If you will not listen that is on you. You have the potential to do so much more, go so much further. (Moore 72)” The expectations that others have set for you no doubt affect you it is just a matter if you are willing to live up to them. That which is expected is what happens. It is not just kids on the streets that have expectations placed on them it is also kids in the classroom and in government offices; “I learned that the way governors projected the numbers of beds they'd need for prison facilities was by examining the reading scores of third graders. Elected officials deduced that a strong percentage of kids reading below their grade level by third grade would be needing a secure place to stay when they got older. (Moore 54)” Governors expect children reading below a third grade reading level to automatically end up in prison later in life. This is very over exaggerated because
Somebody'd written 'Fuck you' on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them- all cockeyed, naturally- what it meant, and how they'd all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days. I kept wanting to kill whoever'd written it. I figured it was some perverty bum that'd sneaked in the school late at night to take a leak or something and then wrote it on the wall. I kept picturing myself catching him at it, and how I'd smash his head on the stone steps till hew as good and goddam dead and bloody." (201) His deep concern with impeccability caused him to create stereotypes of a hooligan that would try to corrupt the children of an elementary school.
At first things didn’t look to bright for Carver’s future, he tried to enlist into the school in Diamond Grove, but was turned down because of racism. They told Carver that African American’s were not permitted to attend the school. With the news of this, George left home on his own, to attend a color school in the community of Neosho. He had to find someone who ...
Remember me is a description of unskilled and skilled work on plantations, how rice was grown and harvested, and the customs of the slaves on the Georgia Coast. Joyner depicts the life of slavery from the Masters, slave, and outside parities to a view seldom seen in the education system today. In His book, Remember Me, Charles Joyner relates the slave owner and slave to each other because each needed one another for survival on a daily basis. Joyner explains how some masters particularly cared for their slaves with one example being from Reverend Colcok Jones, “Tell all the howdye for me, (19)” and other forms of greetings when away from the plantation. However, Joyner also goes into great detail of how some masters mistreated their slaves along with their mistresses. Joyner explains that the Butler’s mistress beat the slaves routinely, and as Fanny Kemble “On the first morning of her arrival amongst us, by beating severely, with a raw cow-hide, the black girl who nursed the infant, because the child cried. (20)” Many historians believe the reason lying behind this was because the plantation owners were having explicit affairs with other slaves, and the wives of Plantation owners were not oblivious to this fact. On one hand, most mistresses felt that the slaves were inferior to the white race, so therefore, beat the slaves without a cause. It was common practice, during the slave period in Georgia, that slave owners beat their slaves. On the Contrary, one might also see that some plantation owners, very few, actually cared for their slaves with great compassion and loved their slaves as their own family.
The fictional setting of A Lesson Before Dying, Bayonne, Louisiana, is based on a real Louisiana town and has a background of Cajun culture, which is an important part of the culture of Louisiana and the South as a whole. Gaines does not go into depth to explain Cajun culture, however, and spends more time carefully describing the injustices of segregation. Readers also see in the novel that despite the Cajun culture all around them and their immersion in it, the African American characters in the novel do not identi...
The focus of the column is about the plight of African-American male students who have begun to enter the white prep schools in the south. Marvin Barnard and Bill Alexander were two black teenage boys who were among the first African-Americans to integrate into Virginia Episcopal School, an all-white prep school in Lynchburg, Virginia. They recognized the opportunity that they were given to start a trend of change in society, and throughout the article, these students challenge themselves to rise above the hate and unfair expectations put on them by their peers. As the title states, they begin to excel in the classroom while also keeping their noses clean. Their diligence and hard work helped to pave the way for other black students to enter these segregated schools. While as a result, it seemed that these students were unfairly pressured and their teenage lives were left unfulfilled because of the decisions they made to behave the right way. However, in the end, their sacrifice helped to complete a new change in the schooling system Not only did white students begin to respect and change their views on blacks, the entire system had to change to accommodate those who were coming in and trying to create change for
The morning is chilly and serene. Droplets of dew weight down the thin grass reflects back the morning sunlight. The morning is calm, but atmosphere is tense. The sound of silence is all throughout. Young boys, dressed in their finest clothes, are each tightly seated next to their proud parents. Tears swell from the mother and the son, as it will be last time they see each other for a while. This is the scene, of the first day of Welton Academy. In the film, Dead Poet’s Society, Neil Perry is a young boy forced to attend Welton Academy, a preparation school for IV colleges, by his parents. With the school famous for bringing up scholars to enter IV league schools after graduation, many of the young boys each face high expectations. Mr. Perry, Neil’s dad, has high expectations of Neil to graduate and enter Harvard to become a
In the opening scene, we see Danny Vinyard, a young white supremacist, sitting in the principal's office, waiting to be summoned. As we move into the office, we hear and see Danny's history teacher (Elliot Gould) explaining to the principal, Dr. Sweeney (Avery Brooks), that Danny wrote a book report on Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. The teacher tells Dr. Sweeney that he is offended by Danny's gesture and he wants to see him punished, declaring that Danny was pressured into writing the paper by his older brother Derek, although Sweeney assures him that Derek was not involved. Instead, Sweeney asks the teacher to leave and asks Danny to step in.Danny then puts an American flag toothpick in mouth, Danny steps into the office and sits down. Dr. Sweeney begins yelling at Danny, telling him that writing what he did is offensive. Sweeney tells him that he is now his new history teacher. The class is called American History X and the next assignment is due tomorrow morning; a paper on his brother, Derek (Edward Norton), analyzing all the events leading up to Derek's incarceration and the subsequent impact on Danny's life. After this, Danny walks out. The next scene opens with three black boys beating up a white boy in the men's bathroom for telling the teacher that one of them cheated. Suddenly, Danny appears out of one of the stalls and blows the smoke from his cigarette into one of the boys' face. As the black boys leave angry, Danny helps the white kid from the ground and tells him that he needs to learn to stand up for himself. Soon we see Danny walking home from school through a park where some black boys are playing basketball. One of the players is the boy from earlier in the bathroom. Danny's voice begins to narrate the scene. Danny says, "Before Derek went to jail, the white kids didn't have to be afraid of the black kids. Derek made it safe." [1]
John Green’s novel Looking for Alaska tells the story of Miles Halter, a shy teenager who transfers to Culver Creek Boarding School for his junior year of high school, in search of the “Great Perhaps”. His roommate, Chip Martin, “The Colonel” takes Miles under his wing and nicknames him Pudge. Miles introduces him to the erratic lifestyle of smoking, drinking, pranks, and Alaska Young. Alaska Young is, witty, moody, beautiful, and self-destructive, and Pudge is attracted to her. When a few of the weekday warriors drag Pudge out of his bed, cover him in ductape and throw him in a lake, and urinated in the Colonel shoes. The Colonel promised himself to have revenge on them. The weekday warriors violated Pudge and urinated in Colonel’s shoes because they believe that the Colonel squealed on problem students Paul and Marya. Alaska later admits to telling on Paul and Marya to avoid being expelled for sneaking off campus in the middle of the night and being in possession of alcohol (Green 73). Alaska, Pudge and the Colonel plot their revenge on the weekday warriors by putting blue hair dye in the weekday warriors’ shampoo and hair gel bottles and releasing fake progress reports to the weekday warriors’ parents, convincing them that they are failing. One night, after drinking with the Colonel and making out with Pudge, Alaska breaks down crying. She drives off campus and dies in a car accident. Alaska’s friends are overwhelmed with guilt and grief. They become obsessed with figuring out where she was driving with white flowers in her car in the middle of the night. Alaska’s friends must came to terms with their guilt and grief and accepted that they will never know if the wreck was intentional or unintentional.