In the book, “Dreams From my Father- a Story of Race and Inheritance” written by Barack Obama, he is talking about his family’s view of what life would be like and how the reality of life was. They had an ideal life where they would live happily, however, those plans were combated by the pressures of racism and discrimination that exists in America. The divide between the white family he grew up with, which was his mother’s side of the family seemed very different from his father’s Kenyan side. The stories Barack was told about his father were very violent/aggressive which played into the stereotype during this time period. It indoctrinated him at a young age to distance himself from that type of behavior to be more “socially acceptable”. Also when Toot got into trouble for calling a black janitor “Mister” and at the end where it says “black girls don’t play with coloreds” had a big influence on a young Barack. It showed him that the world isn’t as good as he thought it would be. 

 

A quote that stood out to me throughout this text was this quote. “Or watch white people from the better neighborhoods nearby walk their dogs down our block to let the animals shit on our curbs-“Scoop the poop, you bastards!” It shows how the people from the better neighborhoods had no respect for black neighborhoods and would go out of their way to deliberately go to the neighborhoods to walk their dogs. Then when the dog poops there they would leave it because they don’t have any reason to try to clean up after their dog in a “lower class” neighborhood. This shows the lack of thought and respect for these neighborhoods where people would walk through and essentially make it their dog’s litter box.