African Americans Essay, Research Paper

In a perfect world, everyone can treat each other the way they deserve to be treated. But as we all know very well, this world is far from perfect. Human nature doesn’t allow everyone to get along. People will always be racist due to some mental illness, called racism, that they have been infected with. This infection sometimes makes the person consider the race to be less than human, and sometimes they will even treat people of this race worse than they would animals.(How could they do that to a boy? pg. 21) Theirs (racists) is an unexplained hatred that they pick up from some unknown source, usually a product of low self esteem, perhaps it was the way that they were brought up, or maybe fear (No one can doubt white America is afraid. pg 30). Whatever its origin, its still a problem, even in todays society. There has been many triumphs in the strive for black rights, but there is still a ways to go. All my life as a student in grammar school and high school, i have learned of the injustice and tragedy of black racism. But up until i read this book, i have only herd the story from white people, telling the story from third person, about how unjust WE were. This book talks about how unjust YOU are. It is a new experience for me to hear about hatred for whites from a black person. The thing that stuck me most about this book, was how unfair racism is. I always knew about how unjust it was, but i feel that unjust and unfair are two different things. I feel that being a high school student with low self esteem due to middle school ridicule (or so i thought) i could almost relate to the unfairness of the black prejudice, but my experience is not even close to the magnitude of their experience. To the best of my knowledge, people don’t choose to be what they are, and i get very angry when people are superficial enough to judge people on their physical appearance. I suppose that i get angry about that partially because i tend to do it as well. As a little kid, i used to get picked on about my big ears, and even though i would tell myself “don’t get offended because its not something you chose to have” but regardless, i would be hurt by the insults. It effected me a lot more when i was little, but when i got older, i learned to ignore it, and it didn’t hurt as much. Later on in my early high school years, i had a period of minor depression. I would always he unhappy about something, but i could never really figure out what it was. I would sometimes think that it might of been my un – exceptionalness, my lack of girlfriend, or maybe the neology that i could do better in school, but for some reason i didn’t. But i could never really pinpoint the reason for my lack of happiness. I sometimes think that it just might of been just a stage that everyone goes though. During this stage, i was very isolated, and i hated everyone and everything. I didn’t like to talk to anyone that i didn’t really know, and i didn’t even talk to my friends that much. This part of the stage lasted a long time, maybe 2-3 years. I became a very bitter and sarcastic person. (i bite my fingernails too) My mother often offered to take me to a phycyaratist to see if they could help me any, but i didn’t believe they could, i thought that i had gotten to a point where i had lost all ignorance and i was totally aware of how things and people worked and i hated everything about it. I didn’t think that anyone could make me believe otherwise. I began to think “whats the point” and while i was far from suicidal, the thought did cross my mind. I don’t mean to sound sick when i say i “fantasized” about it. However, the effect of all this has an opposite effect on me than it did the African Americans. I had a felling of superiority, like i was better than every one, just that everyone else was unaware of their own arrogance and stupidity. But the African Americans seem to feel less superior because of all the racism. The effect of being descrimated because of race and not style, or physical defects must have a different effect on a person.

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