Hammoud 1

Lara Hammoud
Valerie Fong
English 1S.02
15 March 2016

A Choice Of Weapons
Borders have been going on for a long time now. Whether it is a physical border or a
mental barrier, it all has a significant effect on our lives and behavior. A physical border is a
fence or an item that stands in the way and separates two geographic areas or countries. A mental
border, on the other hand, is a non physical barrier that only exists in one's mind. Gordon Parks,
in his book, A Choice Of Weapons, talks about racism and discrimination against black
people. Throughout reading the book, the concept of black versus white appears constantly,
where people with light skin are considered the upper power and the ones with dark skin are the

Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:39 AM

Comment [1]: Thoughtful way to frame
the essay, and a nice connection back to
the essay 3 unit.
Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:38 AM
Comment [2]: No quotation marks
needed for book titles.

minority. This separation of people is a result of a mental border that exists in peoples minds
feeding them on the belief that one race could be better than the other, creating racism and
segregation against black people. To tell the story of the injustice toward the black race, Parks
decides to capture this discrimination on his camera and uses it as a weapon to tell his story. His
choice of weapon has a significant impact on Parks himself, his intended audience historically
and on us in our current time.
Racial discrimination and death have a closer relationship than we ever thought. There
has been plenty of death caused by race especially the black race. Black people were targeted
back in history, where if a black person made a mistake, he would be lynched automatically.
Parks began his book talking about all the death that occurred in his life. He started chapter one
talking about his mothers death and then continued telling us about his cousin and his friends
who have died unfairly because of their skin color. Parks said, At fourteen in the black and
white world of Kansas, anyone whiter than I became my enemy (8). He grew up watching black

Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:40 AM

Comment [3]: Effective edit from your
draft.
Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:40 AM
Comment [4]: And his fear of death

Hammoud 2
people around him die because of society that made anyone with light skin an enemy to black
people. In chapter seven, Parks decides to go to Chicago hoping for a better chance. Arriving to
Chicago on a cold night, Parks goes to rent a place to stay in but he was denied a room because
of his color. Mike, the clerk working at the hotel, told Parks, Im not supposed to take colored
in here.why dont you try the colored section out on the South side of town? (65). Chicago
at that time, and other states, had borders that separated black people from white. The fact that
Parks was denied a room even though he had the money for it, is an example of mental borders.
People at that time believed in no such thing as equality. There was a simple unwritten rule that

Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:41 AM

Comment [5]: I think the focus of the
paragraph may be shifting slightly here
from the threat of violence to the daily
experience with segregation.

Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:42 AM

Comment [6]: Its a physical border as
well, isnt it?

went around stating that whites are always going to get the best of everything and blacks get
nothing.
During Parks journey, we were able to view the world in the eyes of a minority group
that faced racism on daily basis. He opened our eyes to a clear history of segregation and
discrimination towards black people. Parks went around and had seen enough poverty to decide

Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:42 AM

Comment [7]: Clear and meaningful
topic sentence.

on photographing it. He wanted to capture the pain and suffering of black people living in such
areas. In chapter twenty, Parks said, ....I knew that more than anything else I wanted to strike at
the evil of poverty. And here it was, under my feet, all around and above me (208). There was
no such thing as a wealthy black neighborhood because poverty would eat the place up; it was

Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:42 AM

Comment [8]: Well-selected quote. You
can use present tense for the signal verb.

everywhere. Parks described black neighborhoods as landscapes of ash piles, garbage, heaps,
tired tenements and littered streets (208). Black neighborhoods were dirty and unsuitable for
living, but people had no choice but to agree living in such places. He talked about two societies,
black and white. He explained in chapter twenty the difference between the wealthy white
neighborhoods and the black ghetto. According to Parks, the place was an area where blacks
were moving in and whites were moving out, it was a dwindling line of demarcation between the

Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:43 AM

Comment [9]: Very nice selection and
integration of the quote. Its a great
description of the place.
Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:43 AM
Comment [10]: The references to the
chapter numbers are not necessary.
Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:44 AM
Comment [11]: Consider a paragraph
break here, as I think the focus point is
shifting slightly.

Hammoud 3
rich and the poor (203). White people lived the wealthy good life while black people got the
worst. A film called Eyes on the Prize talked more about the different lifestyles of blacks and
whites. In part 8 of the film, Two Societies 1965-1968, showed Detroit as a city booming with
highways, skyscrapers and employment. Although the city was facing a great success, black
communities saw nothing of it. Jobs, good housing and better environments were all in the white
suburbs and the opposite was in the black ghetto. Detroit was separated into two parts with an
invisible border preventing the association between both races. One city was divided to two

Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:44 AM

Comment [12]: Effective use of this film
to illustrate your point and connect with
Parks memoir.

societies because of the existence of mental borders constructed the idea of segregation.
The separation of two races impacted blacks more than whites. Black people were
stripped from the freedom to live comfortably and planted fear and hatred toward white people.
Parks photograph on the right is from an archive of his photographs under the name,
Segregation Story, 1956. This photo captures a moment where black children are held back
from the fun behind a fence. When I first saw the photo I assumed that the playground on the
other side of the fence belongs to a white neighborhood because of the two black and white
unconnected societies. A physical border is preventing the children from playing and enjoying
their childhood because they werent born white. Society at that time made it seem as if almost
having a dark skin is a crime.
Segregation and racism was a huge
problem and people were aware of it, but some
of them decided to live with it and accept it
instead of taking action. When Parks was in
Washington working at Stryker's, he refused to
eat in the rear if the cafeteria with the rest of the

Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:45 AM

Comment [13]: Thoughtful. And Im
looking at your Google doc to see that the
image is well-placed in your essay.

Hammoud 4
black people. A man approaches Parks one day and asks him to sit in the rear like other black
people, and when Parks refused, the man said, Eating out of your place in the cafeteria. Ive
eaten in there for nearly twenty years, right back there in the rear, and you should do the
same(229). This man didnt want trouble, and for that reason he wasnt going to do anything
about discrimination against his own race. In chapter twenty two, Parks was leaving a college
campus with a professor, and when he pulled up at a gas station a man disrespected the professor
as he was calling him a nigger. Parks asked the professor how can he accept something like
this happening every day. The professor replied with, Dont think its easy. All of us teachers
own here have to take it, day in day out. If we dont, whod teach those black boys and girls back
there? The professor wanted to stand up for himself but couldnt because it would affect the
education of the black kids. People like the professor and the man who talked to Parks at the
cafeteria are the ones whose stories are being told by Parks photographs.
Parkss photographs allow others to acknowledge the problem and do something about it.
His photographs were significant to his audience historically because it was their stories that was
being told. These photographs captured peoples pain and suffering and is passing on their

Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:46 AM

Comment [14]: Very thoughtful
observation. I think it would work well to
articulate this more explicitly at the
beginning of the paragraph Parks
speaks for those who are silenced at the
time.

scream for help through photographs as a weapon.

We cant really change history but we can learn from it and not repeat the same mistakes
again.. Through from Parks photographs we can get a feeling of what was life like back then.
We were able to understand the story that was being told and made sure the suffering wouldn't
happen again. Parks photographs were also a tool for us to compare life now and how it was
before. One big difference is diversity. People now are more open to diversity and are more
accepting to different races and cultures. In an article by Andrew Lam called Ode to the Bay,
San Francisco airport was used as a major example to express diversity. Lam said, Go to the

Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:47 AM

Comment [15]: At least here in the Bay
Area.

Hammoud 5
San Francisco Airport on any given day and you'll see what I mean. A world in motion, in flux:
the number of people who pass through those gates at SFO each year exceeds the entire
population of the Golden State. At last count there were 112 languages spoken in the Bay Area.
He uses San Francisco airport to support the idea that we are now living in a melting pot of
different races and cultures. I am not saying that racism is completely gone, but we have reached
a place where everyone of each race, gender, ethnicity is equal and this is what Parks hoped for.
Parks wanted to tell a story of segregation. He was fighting a war with a weapon that was
a camera. He captured the truth and told the story of injustice toward black people. Blacks were
seen as something different and people at that time feared change. The idea of being different
was a strange thing back in history. Whites saw themselves
as the right side and believed that being black was wrong.
Parks in his photograph captured the segregation of the two
races. When I first looked at the photo, I noticed a father
buying his children icecream. It wasnt till the second look
that I noticed that two signs, White and Colored. Even
though there were no white people at the shop, this black
family still had to buy from the colored window on the side
of the shop.
Parks hoped for a better world where blacks had equality, where the pigment or color of
one skins didnt determine the way they were treated. He believed that his camera would be a
significant weapon to end the war of racism and segregation. He captured the poverty and the
injustice black people lived through hoping that it will tell the story of discrimination and that
this issue would end. His photographs impacted his audience historically by sharing their stories

Valerie Fong 3/22/2016 10:47 AM

Comment [16]: True.

Hammoud 6
and spreading their voice for help to end racism. It also impacted us in the present time where we
see the suffering of black people in a segregated history. Lastly, these photographs were
significant to Parks himself as he believed that his choice of weapon would make a change to the
history of black versus white.

Hammoud 7

Work Cited
Parks, Gordon. A Choice Of Weapons. New York: Harper and Row, 1966. Print.
Lam, Andrew. Ode to the Bay: My Life as a Vietnamese Immigrant in California.
Huffingtonpost.com. Huffpost San Francisco, 15 Oct. 2012. Web. 03 Feb. 2016.
Hampton, Henry, et al. Eyes On The Prize.Two Societies 1965-1968. n.p.: [Alexandria, Va.] :
PBS Video, [2006], 2006. FOOTHILL COLLEGE's Catalog. Web. 21 Mar. 2016. Film.

Hammoud 8
Lara I really enjoyed reading your essay. You raise very thoughtful points in response to
the prompt. In particular, I like the connections you make to the essay 3 unit/readings, using the
concept of mental and physical borders as the frame. The images you selected work well to
illustrate your point that Parks photography spoke for those who are silenced. The quotes are wellselected and nicely integrated. It would be interesting to explore a bit further the significance of the
camera as a weapon for Parks personally. For example, you make an important point that Parks
had a fear of death. It would be interesting to discuss the times when he was tempted by violence.
The camera was a kind of escape for him, a way to heed his mothers teachings.
Im looking forward to continuing our work next quarter!
-Valerie