Morgan Adams Journal Three

Part One: So far in Holding on, I am enjoying the book. At the beginning of the class when I first bought the book, my thoughts were “this looks long and boring,” but now that I’ve started reading it, some of the stories are appealing to me. Not all of the stories are very interesting but I have found a few that have stuck with me so far. The strengths of the book are that you get the story from the actual person that was there. Also, these people are telling their story to get their thoughts and dreams across, not for money so it is evident that these stories are not made up or hyperbolized. The strength of the book is also its weakness in that we are only getting one persons opinion of a story so it is very biased, as well. For my strategy of active reading, I put in headphones to read to drown out all of the sounds around me to focus on the book. I also follow what my teachers have always told me, which is to “read with a pencil in hand.”

Part Two: One of the themes that really interested me was the theme of racial discrimination in the story of Moreese Bickham. Moreese Beckham, although he committed a crime, was not treated the same as a white man would have been in the same situation. This subject really hits home with me. My boyfriend Robbie of four and a half years is biracial and has dealt with racial discrimination. For instance, during a high school basketball game, the opposing teams entire student section was yelling racial slurs while he was playing. Another instance that happened was when my boyfriend and I got pulled over for speeding. We followed the officers orders and were very compliant with what he wanted. However, because Robbie looked “suspicious” being that he is black, the cop made him get out of the car so that he could preform a strip search. My whole life, I have been raised to believe that everyone is equal and not to even notice a person’s race or ethnicity. In my opinion, there are bad black people just as there are bad white people, therefore an entire race should not be categorized and stereotyped. In doing so, the world would be a lot less violent.