Devin Davidson Bruce L. Anders English 209 Dec.

19th 2006 Essay #3

Comparing and contrasting Boyle's novel vs. other literature from class

The literature we have read in this class goes into great detail the racism that occurs in California everyday, and how diverse it all can be. The Blacker the Berry, If He Holler
Let Him Go, and The Tortilla Curtain are the best I have seen to exploit the racism. Whether you are black or brown skinned, Spanish speaking or English speaking, racism will hit you square in the face. You soon figure out that at times as you are growing up, that white folks (as we call them) are not always the only ones who discriminate against cultures. So many times it is the same culture showing envy and discrimination against themselves which is painful to hear sometimes. This is the case in The Blacker the Berry, where one young black girl was faced with being outcaste by her own people. Not even in your own circle of friends or family are you considered a perfect human being, its just sad that sometimes an individual has to face it from the normal racist, and then be blind sided by racism from its own kind. It was very upsetting for me to read about one girl and her opposing pressure to fit in at predominately all white school, during a time when racism was in plan sight. If he Holler let him go, African Americans as a culture and not individual were degraded and preyed upon here. The opposing forces were all around them on the streets, and it had a profound effect on the way people went about there lives in this story. Black people who were going to work, trying to make a living were being treated as if they were bombs or sewage on the street, like something you must get

rid of before it pollutes the air or something. White couple in the middle of the streetgiving stare for stare, hate for hate (613), will always be a quote that I will take with me to my deathbed, because it lets me know just serious people took racism back, and the generation them may take it today. I have never been approached with racism in my life yet as a black man, but I am not a concealed individual, so I know it does exist and my people are suffering because of it. Chester Himes writes this story beautiful though in a sense he gives the perfect account, and the truth about hoe the industrialization of this country was built on the backs of African-Americans, and others glaringly fighting the effects of prejudiced but still painfully aware of the need for labor, regardless of sex or race. Thats something that should touch all hearts no matter the emotion you have about it. Playing the race card, seems to me to have been the easiest thing they did in those days to explain the hardships and labor regulations back then. Like The Tortilla Curtain, as we approach a new era in literature it seems nothing as changed, just the change In cultures. What I mean by this is that now the focus is on Hispanic immigrants. The blacks and Asians cultures felt the beginnings of isolation but it did not stop with them, and The Tortilla Curtain proves that in detail. Can I help you? Deleaney breathed, gesturing futilely, wondering whether to reach down a hand or not-should he be moved? (7) Goes to show how much one man values the life of a minority human being. Goes to show you how much a label impacts the way one culture looks at another. The story allows you to look into the mind of racism first hand, and allows the reader to take a peek into how people talk about other people, talk about isolating themselves from other cultures like there better than another group of people. And they were moving in the direction of the cash registers-all three of them, as a group-and Jack, the conciliatory Jack, Jack the politician, Jack the sooner of gripes, grievances and hurts real or imaginary, put an arm over Delaneys shoulder and warbled his sweetest notes: listen, Delaney, I

know how you feel (speaking about a gate they built to keep Mexicans out of their community) and I agree with you. Its not easy for me either- its nothing less than rethinking your whole life, who you are and what you believe in. and we get control of the border again, I will be the first to advocate taking it down. Racism, as shown all throughout the three important stories to me, and the best pieces I have read, is a thought and a mind frame that will never leave the minds of the so-called majority. The one word that compares all these works is the racism showed by human beings (mainly whites) as a whole. I notice that the racism shown is not within the same ethnicity, but that of different cultures. I will never fully understand the true meaning behind racism, because human beings are all the same, and the only thing that makes us different is our cultures and skin color. Our different climate where we live around the world is what makes our skin and outlook different from others, when will people get that. I hope in the future, especially after seeing that there is school material like this in the hands of college students, that we as a people, not as white or black or Hispanic, realize that racism is what is tearing human beings apart. Racism is what is creating a need for war, and racism is what renews a hate for one another, and stop it for good. Thats the biggest reason for me appreciating, and loving The Tortilla Curtain so much, because it coincided so much with the old school racism of The Blacker the Berry and If He Holler Let Him Go.

Devin:

Your paper has the potential to be a very good one; however, as I have noted in comments on your previous papers, the grammar, punctuation, spelling, and English usage are far below the academic requirements for a course at this level. 15/25