In Barack Obama’s book, ‘Dreams from my father- a story of race and inheritance- three rivers press’, he discusses what his family believed their life would be like versus what it was actually like. They envisioned life to be normal, just like everyone else but they soon came to realize that the racial divide of the people. When moving to Texas and interacting with a new set of people they had not encountered the new atmosphere of which was Jim crow at the time. “While the two of them chatted in the hallway one day, a secretary in the office stormed up and hissed that Toot should never, ever, “call no nigger ‘Mister.’ ” Not long afterward, Toot would find Mr. Reed in a corner of the building weeping quietly to himself.” interactions like this came to them as a culture shock and they truly didn’t get the racial divide. In the end of chapter one Barrack himself goes on to say that, “I would not have known at the time, for I was too young to realize that I was supposed to have a live-in father, just as I was too young to know that I needed a race.” this is being used to infer, being that he grew up in a mixed house hold there were certain things that he simply couldn’t wrap his finger around just as his grandparents couldn’t with the reality of things.
My grandmother didn’t have an answer that day, but the question lingered in her mind, one that she and Gramps would sometimes discuss once my mother had gone to bed. They decided that Toot would keep calling Mr. Reed “Mister,” although she understood, with a mixture of relief and sadness, the careful distance that the janitor now maintained whenever they passed each other in the halls. Gramps began to decline invitations from his coworkers to go out for a beer, telling them he had to get home to keep the wife happy. They grew inward, skittish, filled with vague apprehension, as if they were permanent strangers in town.
This passage stuck with me the most. I admired Barracks grandparents for being part of the solution rather than an addition to the problem. they did this by continuing to call the black man “mr.” rather than going along with the unjust social norms. Although they could do but so much with their little experience they seemed to stay out of the racial mix.
I agree with what you said here. Also, this type of environment can be very difficult for a child to be raised in.