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Analysis Of The Book ' The Murder Of Beau Boutan '

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Harrison Zickler
Mrs. Story
AP. English Language
24 November 2015
Racism in the modern world
Out of all of the crimes committed in the U.S. in 2013, 5,928 of them were hate crimes and 48.5% of those were ethnic related (“Latest Hate Crimes”). Most of these crimes were committed by white males. In A Gathering of Old Men, Sheriff Mapes, the white sheriff, although he represents justice and the law, enacts a kind of “hate crime” by misjudging the murder he knows the murderer is African American, simply because of his racial status. Gaines depicts this racial prejudice of white men towards innocent African American people. This stereotype holds true today, as evidenced by the recently racially motivated violence, particularly the murder of nine African American people by the white neo-Nazi Dylann Roof.
The murder of Beau Boutan is the main point in which the conflicts in the novel arise. Although Beau Boutan, who leases a plantation from Jack and Candy Marshall, dies early in the novel, he plays a large symbolic role. He gets shot by Charlie. He symbolizes the white men who have perpetrated violence against African Americans.
Dylann Roof, a 21 year old man, innocently wandered into Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church to participate in a Bible study, or so the members thought. Closer to the end of the study he revealed a gun and proceeded to shoot and murder nine people and injure one. The one he injured said was left him as a message to others.
Many people today
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