Black In America

Throughout the film statistics were constantly thrown at us showing how African Americans are more likely to go to jail or flunk out of high school or college. These are very sad statistics to hear, but I believe that a lot of these problems are self-inflicted problems. As it even said in the film, many African Americans do not do well in school because it is not considered black to get good grades when many of them are capable of achieving those good grades. Fixing errors in ideology such as this would lead to more African Americans graduating and being able to get better jobs instead of leaving high school and turning to a life of crime for money.
I am not saying that it is purely due to this ideology that African Americans seem more disadvantages, for I realize that there is still racism around today, but that small remainder of racism seems to be fading fast, as shown by the election of Barack Obama and the appointment of several other African Americans to high ranking positions within the government. To me, it seems to be not so much racism that holds African Americans back, but rather several mentalities, which have became ingrained within their culture. If these cycles were to be broken I believe that many of the startling statistics presented within the film would drop to much lower levels. Another of these problems is the amount of kids who grow up without father figures because the fathers don’t marry the mother before having the kid. A lot of the time this causes the dad to be distant and not have an influence on his sons’ life, which, though maybe not consciously influences the son who acts the way his dad did.
Finally, though many may disagree, I believe that affirmative action also has a negative effect upon the African American community because young students who might not be qualified for a certain college still get in. Not only does this mean that the college may be too hard and that they may fail where they would succeed at another college but it also would implant a doubt in their mind and in others minds. As the many who worked for a music company said, even if you do a good job, in the back of people’s mind will always lurk the suspicion that, “oh, he got the job because he is black,” so that a persons work may never be totally validated.
I realize that some of my opinions may come across to some people the wrong way and that I can never truly understand what African Americans in this country go through, but I still believe that many of the problems today are not due to racism, but rather due to flaws that became ingrained within the culture.

Epistolary Novel

I believe that reading an epistolary novel is a good experience. It is very different than a normal novel, but I believe that it is different in a good way. I did not think I would enjoy this novel very much because the last book that I read that was an epistolary novel was Dracula by Bram Stoker. Instead, this book has been very interesting to read and what makes it even better is that, even though it is a fiction book it has many references to things that happened in the past that it forces you to look closely. You must also scrutinize the book carefully to be able to pick up on what happens to all the characters. A simple news article or mail between “The Green Hornet” and “The Shadow” could have a large impact on the novel, or it could just be a funny side comment such as Ms. Aubaugh actually turning out to be a Nazi spy.
You had to pay close attention to many things throughout the novel in order to pick up on all the small details that were revealed, such as Joey Margolis mailing Hazel MacKay about Charlie Banks’ brother and saying something along the lines of “he probably feels guilty.” Though this is a very small comment, it is very important to the book because it reveals that Harlan Bank’s death might have been a result of something irresponsible that Charlie Banks did. These small details are sometimes hard to catch, but it makes the novel much more interesting than a normal novel, which would generally come out in some other way or just blatantly announce in some fashion that Harlan’s death was possible due to something that Charlie Banks did.
I believe that the book has been enhanced due to its epistolary style, because you have a wonderful plotline that is full of intricacies that you must be able to see and whenever you see something that hints at a joke or a fact that would come back later in the book you will either get a laugh or start to wonder about how this little detail will affect the characters later on. I think that the epistolary style also makes connecting with the characters of the novel easier because you get to see their true emotions expressed within the letters that they write. You are not told by the author “Joey felt sad,” but rather you see Joey write a letter in which he expresses the grief he feels.
I really enjoy reading this book, and I feel that the epistolary style is one of the reasons I enjoy it so much. The characters seem so much more real and you are able to connect much easier than with other novels and I’m happy that the author chose this style of writing.