Buck A Memoir Essay

I’m sure many have shared stories of their high school experiences and can relate when I say those four years have taught me many lessons. During this time, I’d come face to face with the fraudulent friendships, temporary romances, and other high school dramas that my parents once warned me about—those of which I simply brushed off as myths. It wasn’t the 90’s anymore— times have changed and people are different—or at least, that’s what I thought.

A saying i've kept to myself is to get back up when knocked down. This saying doesn’t just stand for getting up when literally knocked down but can keep a deeper meaning than what it says as for example being knocked down by a difficult obstacle to overcome and getting up to find a way to get past it and achieving it. Some people may not see this as something important but they don’t think about how getting up after knocked down can be something that can or would have been like a positive outcome into their life and how they are given two choices when knocked down which is to stay down or get back up and continue going forward.

MK Asante’s Buck shows us even though a young black man can have a strong leader in the household, it does not mean he is an effective role model. Malo introduces us to his dad as a man with values and morals. He described him as a man with lots of knowledge about African and living as an Afro-centric person. His dad was a minister a long time ago and even debated with Cornel West. Malo was able to see his dad debate with the best of them. He was proud of his dad. He thought it was “dope” to see his dad have passion, energy, confidence, and intelligence. There is a poster in Malo 's house that reads: “A people without knowledge of their past is like a tree with no roots.” He believes knowledge is power. So why not be a better role model for the two black boys in your household? The purpose for this essay is to examine MK Asante’s, Buck, through a Marxist theoretical lens in regards to Malo and his dad.

Unfortunately, I would not be making it to your America history 102 class today, due to some unexpected family situation. Hopefully by next week class I will be somewhat caught up. Also, I recently had a situation with my midterm essay, I spend almost two to three hours typing the essay at Kalamazoo Valley Community College (TTC) in the computer center and when I was about to be finished, I assumed I saved the paper so I exit it out and after my wellness class I had gone back to the computer center and I had noticed my midterm essay was not in my document folder. There was nothing I and the computer staff can do, so now I am currently typing a whole knew midterm essay, and since I have a horrible memory I am not sure what I wrote about the

Typical, just a typical summer day for me. In fact, everything about it was typical. The time I got up, what I had for breakfast and what projects my dad had in store for me to do on the old house. My other family members would too also get jobs and projects to do around the house. Most of the time everyone would work on separate things and we would get many things accomplished putting us closer to our goal of getting the house on the market. But there would be times where we would have to work with other people. Depending on who you worked with you either got stuff done or you were arguing with that person about the silliest of things which would inevitably cause you to slow done and not get anything done. For me, that was

Tuesday October 7th 2014 Shaneik Smith Professor Williams Writ 101 Wangari Bibliography Maathai, Wangari. Unbowed: A Memoir. New York, Random House, 2006. Print.

Summer of 1994. New York City smelled no different than hot rat piss and looked accordingly. Fresh off my 15th birthday and wandering the Brooklyn streets with Hakeem, we followed the music wherever it played. Our community cherished music through constant airplay. Anyone with loud speakers, either in their car, apartment, or boombox, blared any of the anthems from the future greats. Whether it's Nas, Wu-Tang, Biggie, or Tribe, the list is blissfully endless. Hakeem’s brother, a well-connected music promoter, gave Hakeem two tickets to this secret show he was putting on for Ice Cube, who, despite being the first notable west coast rapper, carries a rage within him that the east coast entirely recognizes.

“Buck” was written by author M.K. Asante, “Buck” is about a kid named Malo who grew up dealing with the wrong type of crowd. Malo made a lot of messed up decisions getting into a lot of trouble with cops, drugs, and etc. Even though Malo was a bad kid, Malo ended up turning his life around for the better getting an education.

My first buck was a 6 point ,small but still a 6 point and this is all about me killing it.I was 11 and I was so happy because my dad bought me a new gun.I woke up at 9:00 in the morning to get ready and go up north with my dad.When we were in the car we would look at the trees and animals we passed.We would see bucks sometimes and the biggest one I have seen was a 10 point but since i was little he looked big.we said when we got there we would go back and start hunting but when we got there it was dark so we just went to sleep.

They say money is the root of all evil, they say money makes the world go round, they say money can’t buy happiness. When I was 14 I learned not all these expressions are factual.

When I was near to eight years old, I walked outside when my father got home that nice warm summer day. I went over to where he was by his truck and trailer to find that he was detaching chains from an old Farmall M that had been oxidized entirely and the motor and transmission had been seized entirely. “It was a cotton picker down in Texas” he said, “she’s definitely seen better days but we’ll make it look brand new”. Bang, thump, ssss was all you could hear as we loosened the binders that held the pile of rust to the trailer and took the shackles back to the tool box.

Coach Burns gave the Porters and we free passes to the game. My sister Julie and me decided to make use of them. The Porters and we made plans to go together. Since they lived farther from the stadium than us, they were going to pick us up. They did not put the stadium within walking distance, unfortunately. While Julie and I stood waiting at the curb, John and Laura Johnson drove up and offered to take us to the stadium.

For African -American adolescents during the early 20 th centu ry, this crisis of identity took on an even more visceral reality through the physical, social, political and personal unrest imposed by a white -dominant society. The struggle of the African-American adolescent was not only one for self -awareness but for survival as wel, from oppression, ridicule and the hopelessness of a future devoid of achievement and possibility. Richard, the narrator of Richard Wright’s fictionalized autobiographical exploration of African -American life, Black Boy , exemplifies this cultural struggle in a society constantly hounding blacks for the color of their skin. Because the adolescent narrator’s growth process is somewhat stunted by the imprisonment of American society in the South, he turns to violence as a means of breaking o ut of his stasis. Throughout the first half of the novel, Wright’s narrator encounters/inflicts numerous instances of violence that serve to further his adolescent journey by promoting a “second birth” involving the active struggle for self -defense and su rvival amongst a downtrodden culture that finds peaceful resistance an al too easy and comforting method of survival.

The process of completing my memoir has been difficult, but fulfilling at the same time. It was difficult to figure out what topics I wanted to write about. I really wanted to dig deep into myself and write about topics that would change me. The prompts given to me about writing about your pet or funniest moment weren’t very appealing to me. I wanted to write about something that was difficult to write about, but would help me at the same time. Some of the topics I choose were a challenge because I was explaining meaningful things that I’ve never put in words before. My hardest topics included my first relationship, a significant person in my life, and my scariest moment. On the other hand, I enjoyed writing about how I got my name, appreciating

In my short memoir I primarily discuss one of the most memorable and life changing days of my life for me and my family. The suspense and the focal point of the story is related to the mail that came. The happy feeling I had can only truly be understood by someone that went through the struggle of living in a third world country as a middle class citizen. The memoir was written in first person point of view. I describe some of the early events in the story before finally knowing what was inside the mail in very detail to illustrate the mixed set of emotions. For instance discussing the tears of my mother showed the happy emotions my mom was having after knowing the wait was finally over. I also use dialogues to discuss my thoughts to engage