... evils of spooks' and niggers'. After I became old enough to ask the right questions and do a bit of research, it didn't take long for me to realize that not everyone in the world felt the same way as my family did, though a great many people were practiced in the art of ... by recounting an experience from his youth in which his family, although hard working, had less money than an unemployed black family that collected welfare and food stamps. Just by telling me this story, he was getting very angry. I imagine that he was remembering old feelings of frustration and envy. He ... and I co...

• Word Count: 976
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• Grade Level: High School

... to see if my mom, dad, and baby sister had woken up yet and discovered the horrible thing that had happened to our house. There they were, three piles of black ashes. Two in my parents' bed and one in what used to be my sisters ballet pink crib. They were gone, all, of them. Letting myself cry and scream for ... in my room sulking and being an annoying teenager. This will haunt me for the rest of my life and forgiveness will never come upon me. The sights, touch, smell, or sound of my family will never be around me again. When I opened my front door the amount of black ash astonished me...

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• Grade Level: High School

... Leewanika Kemanjo" "what happened to Dee" I wanted to know. "She's dead" Wangero said. "I couldn't bear it longer, being named after the people who oppress me." What Dee do not understand is that changing name is not going to bring her any closer to her roots, if she rejects her past. I think this is ... in five years they"d be in rags. Less than that!" "She can always make some more" I said. "Maggie knows how to quilt." Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. "You just don't understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!" "Well" I said, stumped. "what would you do with them?" "Hang...

• Word Count: 1135
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• Grade Level: High School

... to ask you a question." And he reached over to the dark brown oak end table beside him and picked up what looked to me like a small black box. He looked back at me and said 'Will you marry me,' as he opened the black box to reveal an elegantly lavishing looking solitaire diamond ring engagement set. I didn't know what to say at first, I was just too ... stunned, so I got my bearings and I looked into his beautiful soft brown eyes and said the only thing I knew I could say, "Yes!" He grabbed me ... up by the waist and put his arms around me, almost cutting me in ... ...

• Word Count: 808
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• Grade Level: High School

... . He was one of the most precious things I could ever have. I first saw Kisser when my neighbor's dog had puppies. There were 3 brown puppies, and 2 black puppies. The little curious black ones would never let us hold them or pet them, they were always scurrying off away from us. On the day before I picked my puppy to keep, one ... of the little black ones let me hold them. It was so cute and sweet. My mom and dad told me I could get one that same night. When I went over to get one, I didn't have a hard time choosing. I picked ... a car last night and had broken her front right leg up ...

• Word Count: 570
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• Grade Level: High School

... . Throughout his whole life he has felt that there is something different between his mother and himself. His father and his eleven brothers and sisters are all black and his mother was white. This never really bothered James when he was a child. His mother never talked about race and did not see herself as ... and once he got here, he was done with her."(McBride,10/13/03:15). I can't imagine that a man would treat his wife like that. I am married and if my husband treated me like that I would leave him, but times are different now. The father was having an affair when his wife got sick ...

• Word Count: 693
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• Grade Level: High School

... when she would ask him where he been. Because, he never came home from work. My mother use to wear sun glasses to cover up her black eyes. It was kind of tough for my mother because she had never worked; my father wanted her to stay home and take care of us. ... be punctual and turn my assignments in on time. I have learned how to manage my time and get my priorities straight. What motivates and influence me is my 2 children and that I am a single parent just like my mother was. I want my children to have all of the things I did not have growing up. My mother was not able to ... Such a...

• Word Count: 961
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... off to the campsite where by some unexplainable happening the word had already gotten back to my grandma. I was in big poopie! She was very upset with me and made me sit in the tent for a half hour. Talk about torture, a whole thirty minutes sitting on the rocks, pebble, stones, and sticks, sitting up ... into the end of a 2x4 at the base of a tent platform. As I dizzily I looked up tears welled in my eyes, and a shrill like cry formed in my throat. While my grandfather rushed over me with mean beady red eyes and instinctively yelled, "Don't you cry don't you dare cry!" Therefore I didn'...

• Word Count: 636
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• Grade Level: High School

... and the shedding of a few tears, even after all these years. That picture was taken over sixty years ago, but it seems that painful memories are like forgotten thorns that prick us with their wicked barbs when we least expect it. My small, faded photo album is open to the first page and there ... in my mind from such a young age still ring with crystal clarity to this day, yet I have a hard time remembering everyday things? I turn the faded, black and white photo over with my shaking, wrinkled hands that reflect the ravages of time. I smile at the handwriting of my mother that has etched...

• Word Count: 890
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• Grade Level: High School

... be a misjudgment of someone's character. You can find dates that are responsible and caring in the projects. This advice from Shantell's parents is interpreted by me, as negative. There is good in everyone. Nevertheless, Shantell dates a young man who lives in a house that is in a better neighborhood. After a ... And the other question is, "Will I have the daddy's support?" The fact that Shantell becomes pregnant at age 17 is a negative factor on the black family. Traditionally, a woman finishes school, goes on to college, gets married and then becomes pregnant. But, can this tradition ...

• Word Count: 740
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• Grade Level: High School

... in the midst of my father's shadow, I watched him as he spoke to an unknown man about the papers he held out. Black slacks, a white collared shirt with a black tie, he seemed professional. The pen scribbled along the bottoms of the paper. "I'm sorry, the man mumbled, lowering his eyes to ... , I can't imagine crying. I rarely do anymore. Sometimes I feel like I've used up all my tears in the past, and that's why it's hard for me to crack a tear. The suffering made me an emotionless type of person. It's hard for me to express my feeling or thoughts towards something, even when it's all a...

• Word Count: 861
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• Grade Level: High School

... Ruth's family disowned her. Because everyone she came close too disowned her, she developed a rugged exterior. She didn't want the family she raised to see black and white like the family she grew up in did. She wanted them to see love and that's it. This caused problems though. James knew that his mom looked ... it was dark and get caught, Ruth would "have hands on hips, whipping belt in hand, eyes flickering angrily back and forth to the window, then to me, lips pursed, trying to decide if it was light or dark outside"" (McBride 28). He also reflects on the time when Billy forgot his l...

• Word Count: 941
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... through the property. I have splashed barefoot through the slow ripples of this creek numerous times while trying not to slip on the moss-covered rocks below. To me, this is the most beautiful place on earth. It's tranquility and solace makes it easy to imagine being my grandmother during her youth. So, I lie back ... Some days, I would do nothing more than grab a good book and head to my bedroom to read and relax while the warm breeze softly blew on me through the screened-in porch. Other days, I would hike around the ranch just enjoying nature. We had the most vibrant, rainbow-colored w...

• Word Count: 1180
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... started this job as a volunteer similar to the majority of you sitting here. I often wondered what my days would consist of. I had to go through training just like each of you. I learned how to deal with the worst possible situations that children may go through. For instance, I remember my first case as a volunteer. It ... eleven-year-old girl came to the door by the name of Gracie. She had a black eye, but what stuck out the most was the scar on her leg. Later we found out the black eye came from her dad punching her because she was watching television, and her mom was ... college and...

• Word Count: 1079
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• Grade Level: High School

... Find" there were signs of foreshadowing, symbolism, irony and motifs that stood out to me more than others. In this story the colors red, gray, and black showed up a few times as motifs that were in the short story. I would like to believe that these colors had a specific roles to play in the story. Red ... signifying blood and danger, black signifying danger and death, and gray being the time between death ... characters wore and by the description of the woods where the family had the accident. The woods was described dark and black the author even went so far as to say "the woods g...

• Word Count: 564
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• Grade Level: High School

... Good Man is Hard to Find. In this short story, the grandmother is the main character. As the family leaves for their vacation the grandmother remembers to dress like a lady in case something were to happen to her. She is a racist and loves to talk about her youth when she was a maiden lady. During ... lot of money and much bigger houses and much more land. (O"Connor 195-196) Mrs. Turpin frequently thanks Jesus that she wasn't born white trash or black or ugly. She is very racist and wants to make sure that blacks stay in their place. While in the waiting room of a hospital discussing he...

• Word Count: 1220
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... set down on the steps, "Cause you finds it's kinder hard; Don't you fall now- For I'se still goin", honey, I'se still climbin", And life for me ain't been no crystal stair. Langston Hughes" poem "Mother to son" shows a mother's passion to make her son's life better than her own. It is a dramatic ... one person speaks), but we know someone from the inside is listening to her. It is through tone, diction, and imagery that Langston Hughes presents a black Madonna by bringing salvation to her son. The tone of the poem shows the desperation and despair that the mother has felt in her life. Y...

• Word Count: 576
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• Grade Level: High School

... people in the house, An-Meis mother commits suicide only after she tells An-Mei that she would rather kill her own weak spirit so she could give me a stronger one (Tan, 240). As a Chinese belief, it is thought that a mother was to pass her spirit to her daughter and so on ... she must tell her daughter everything about her life. Ying-ying asks herself, How can I leave this world without leaving her my spirit? She will fight me But I will win and give her my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter (252). Therefore in this complicated mother-daughter relationship, ... m...

• Word Count: 1148
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• Grade Level: High School

... deacon board meeting, and so on. As a child, I was constantly "preached to" by her. She would always chastise me in the ways of the Lord. Always quoting scriptures, saying things like, " you know the Lord is your Shepherd you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you you should read Proverbs for ... and Proverbs that. Even as a child, whenever I wanted something, I had to earn it by memorizing something Biblical like the order of the books of the bible, or a certain chapter that she cited for me. Due to hearing so much of this, over time I began to tune it out. I just did wha...

• Word Count: 1147
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... from being inferior to standing her ground when Dee says she wants the quilts: " I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me snatched the quilts out of Miss. Wangero's hands and dumped then into Maggie's lap" (303). Mama then continues to say, "Take one ... girl, bearing the scars on her body as a result of their house burning down ten or twelve years prior. Almost lifeless and lacking confidence, Maggie walks like a, "lame animalchin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle," (298). Maggie speaks slowly and low in tone; sometimes they, " ... asks, "What happened t...

• Word Count: 1247
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... , and family or social statuses. When talking to Mr. Rochester, Antoinette says that the local Jamaican population constantly called her, a white cockroach. That's me. And I've heard English women call us white niggers. So between you and I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where ... is a part of any family. Antoinettes biological family is dysfunctional and she is shunned when she asks about her half siblings who are black and whose father is the same as Antoinettes biological father, Alexander Cosway. When she finally finds and feels comfortable with her family at ... ...

• Word Count: 1121
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• Grade Level: High School

... over the streets and shinned on the filthy homeless men who lurked these parts like dirty rats. I felt someones presence behind me, I made a slow turn as I saw an old man who had an torn robe and a black hat which had seen better days. He looked at me with his dead eye sand asked me with a very narrow damp and weak hissing voice and demanded give ... me some change you don't know what its like over here I cant spare you some change he looked at me with disappointment in his eyes You dont know what ... and the remote control on the other, I looked at him and saw things I hadnt noticed b...

• Word Count: 990
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• Grade Level: High School

... shaking would frighten any child. Her nappy black hair that lay placid in front of her pale blue eyes would at times seem to not have been washed for years. She's a small, stocky old lady who sat lifeless at any dinner table. My grandmother appeared to me as a wretched monster. By her appearance ... I have received no love from that woman. She has never given anyone a chance to love her. Since I was little boy, I was brought up not to like my grandmother because she hated my mom for the fact that my mom married my father. As a child, I did not notice the negative actions that grownups h...

• Word Count: 948
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... Buck's hatred seems to have poisoned the entire family. He is blind to everything regarding his son Hank. I don't believe that Hank is a routed racist like him. In my opinion he is rather a desperately conflicted son who tries to live up to his fathers expectations. Hank has no control at home. So the ... him and Hank knows it. Hank is angry and disgusted at himself. When Hank beats Sonny up there is a black officer who tries to restrain him. Hank replies to him: "Get your hands off me, you n*****." But the officer insists "Hank this ain't you" This guy knows Hank better than the audience...

• Word Count: 736
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... lived in a very tall apartment complex in downtown Nashville. She lived on one of the top floors and had the most putrid looking furniture and served me Tomato juice. The second time I seen her, she was in a nursing home and was recovering from electric shock therapy. Of course at my young ... know that whatever it meant, it wasn't a good thing and I didn't want to be there, it seemed really wrong. I grew up learning that black people were no good, that they have no rights and that they have nothing to offer the world. Yet, I recall my dad listening to Michael Jackson ... like we would...

• Word Count: 1220
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School