Paul Volponi's Black and White

This world is filled with many troubles including racism. Society often depicts whites as superior to blacks. However, this is not precise, because every race has both good and bad within it. The world is trying to break away from racism to become a better place for everyone around the world. Racism is not only about the color of one’s skin, it can impact individuals around the world due to their race or religion. The title of this novel is “Black and White” by Paul Volponi. In this coming of age story, two friends, Marcus Brown and Eddie Russo, who are black and white (respectively), are senior basketball stars at their high school. Marcus lives in community housing which is fraught with crime with a single mother. On the other hand, Eddie lives in a private house nearby where Marcus lives. Both Marcus and Eddie are in financial hardships and need to find easy money to cover their school and basketball fees. The two agree to start pulling robberies when they unintentionally shoot a black man. They are left in anxiety trying to avoid getting caught while trying to lead a normal life after the incident. They both end up going through the justice system, and Marcus must serve jail time while Eddie gets to go free. While all of this transpires, Marcus and Eddie manage to keep their friendship strong and overcome any barriers together. Any true friendship can overcome racial stereotypes put in place by society including the racial barrier between Blacks and Whites. The novel

Lloyd didn’t know he’d been drafted by the NBA until a friend told him she’d heard a rumor that he’d be moving to Washington. Joining an all-white team was intimidating, Lloyd recalled, but his teammates were immediately welcoming; However, Some fans were less kind. A white man in the front row asked:

The perspective showed in this book is cultural, as their environments have shaped Wes Moore and the other Wes Moore as well as their nationality and social community. Even know both Wes Moore’s grew up in fairly similar ways their choices are the one thing that made them different in the end. This book explains how both boys are surrounded by older kids that have surrounded themselves with drugs to the point where they wouldn’t know another way to live. From this both Wes Moore’s are already immersed into the drug culture and environment that all it takes is one wrong decision for them to be like the older kids. Being African American in the late 1990’s has a big impact on the way people

1/2 hours later, 15 year old Brenton Butler is arrested by Jacksonville police. Everything was against him he is identified by the only witness, Mr Stephens (Mrs. Stephens husband). For the investigators and the media who cover the story, it is just another messed up kid, just another wasted life. But when the case for the defense comes into the hands the lawyers, the story comes to be quite so usual. The boy states that he is innocent. He has bruises on his face. He tells that the detectives & officers beat him up and forced him to a confession out of him. & the one who hit the hardest is a certain Glover, Sheriff of Jacksonville. Everyone police, media and public opinion is ready to sentence Brenton Butler, but Patrick McGuinness begins a battle to restore his client's rights and to point an accusing finger at those he considers to be the real culprits detectives Williams, Glover and

Once upon a time, A kid that goes by the name of Demario went to school in chicago’s worst neighborhoods. Englewood area was not the best area to live in. Comparison to the Englewood in California. Demario was a humble teenager. He has a twin brother who goes by the name of Demacio. Demario was the oldest by one whole minute. They both attended Johnson college prep a local charter school ( high school ). The streets in englewood was every mans for themselves. They both lived by the motto “You live or die in chicago”.

The movie Boyz N the Hood is an illustration of how a group of early adolescents’ lives was affected negatively due to the environment they lived in. These adolescents lived in an environment where drugs, gangs, and shootings were the center of their community. Living in a predominantly African American community these adolescents were faced with many misfortunes. Ricky one of the adolescent characters I have decided to evaluate for this particular paper was faced with adversity.

After all, the Permian school district gerrymandered the boundary lines in order to get as many black kids to play on their football team as possible. However, they only convinced themselves of their tolerance. When almost all minorities lived behind the barrier, over the tracks, excluded from white interaction outside of school, it is hard to believe that the love for sports triumphed over racism. On the field, blacks were welcomed for their athletic skill. Off the field, it was back over the tracks where they belonged. Blacks knew what the tracks represented: “Symbolically and physically, the tracks were still a barrier and still defined an attitude” (92). The school and team integration covered the racism that was still clearly present in Odessa. The former principal of the “black school” said that “[t]here 's no integration, there is desegregation. There is no integration in this community, the same as any community in America” (98). The townspeople of Odessa know in their hearts that true integration doesn’t exist, but it didn’t matter because the government saw that Permian high school finally became integrated and allowed blacks and Mexicans to play on their sacred sports team. In this case, football wasn’t just a game. The integration of the team was a blanket to cover all of the racism and separation. At the end of the day, sports didn’t save the minorities; they had to go back to the rough side of town.

They take him to his house and talk to his parents because he has a strange traffic pattern. Marcus talks about arphid cloning and Vanessa gets mad. Marcus’s dad gets pulled over twice making him get home three hours late.

In a life threatened by drugs, theft, and violence, African American Roland G. Fryer was able to conquer many hardships and excel in his education as well as his research. He completed his B.A. at the University of Texas at Arlington and went on to earn his Ph.D. in economics from Penn State University. “Acting White,” a scholarly journal published in 2006, is defined by Fryer as interactions in society where minority adolescents who receive good grades don’t reach a high level of popularity as a white adolescent would. The essay studies a specific trend among high-achieving minority students stating, “these gifted students tend to be less popular the more academically successful they are” (Fryer, 5422). In his essay, Fryer argues that the phenomenon of acting white takes place when minority adolescents who achieve academically tend to be less popular when they are compared to white students who also do well academically. He found that this phenomenon is more noticeable in racially-mixed schools than in one-race dominant schools and is attributable to what he calls “group identity”. Fryer also believes that other studies about this phenomenon are biased and so he tries to establish and employ his own method so that it is the most unbiased in his essay.

When Dad chose to move Paul and his family to Tangerine County, Florida, Paul did not say a word in defiance. While they were in Florida, Paul discovered a file labeled “Erik scholarship offers”. He opened the file and found a large number of colleges in Florida exhibiting interest in Erik. “Rice University, Baylor University, and the University of Houston had sent letters to Erik” expressing their view of his football career (159). Paul was shocked when he realized that this may have been the reason behind their move to Florida. His confidence was lowered because Paul believed that Dad thought Erik was more important than Paul.

Gerald is a 19 year old that has other brothers that all want the inheritance of their parents for themselves they are all selfish and they are fighting over the money and they keep fighting then gerald snaps and he stabs one of his brothers and left him for dead as he was running the cops saw him and they chased him and through the city and when he found his house he ran in then the brothers attacked him for killing his own blood and then he fought out of it and he got into a fist fight with his brothers and that wasn't for killing his brother it was for the money and he was losing when his close friend came and broke up the fight and the friend got punched in the face and he drew a gun and yelled “quit this fighting aren't you guys brothers” and Gerald ripped the gun out of his friends hand and he shot it

Cory Miller is a high school senior and performs at the top of his academic class. With a 4.0 grade point average, he spends his time involved in after school activities while working a part-time job. In a few months, Miller will have completed what only 52 percent of Black males nationwide achieve – a high school diploma. As Miller crosses the stage full of knowledge related to math formulas, vocabulary words and American history, he will continue on without the knowledge of money management, cooking, negotiation, and urban survival

give him a drug test and the officer refused to give him one. Instead the officer told him to get out of the car and Mr.Spears said, “No” and got threatened with pepper spray. His friend, Mr. Phillips, didn 't want to get hurt either and raised his hands and still got threatened to get tased. Both Mr. Spears and Mr. Phillips both went to jail for the night with the charges of being resisting towards an officer instead of the “ actual reason” on why he pulled them over which was intoxication while driving. A similar incident like this one also occurred in this city with two brothers, Rufus and Devin Scales, but instead it was a black and white officer that pulled them over. As they were getting pulled over, “Rufus Scales reached to keep his

While Sam is the “head honcho” of the fictional Ivy’s Black Student Union, Lionel (DeRon Horton) is its outcast, a gay student journalist who feels equally out of place in black and white circles. For a chance at joining the prestigious campus newspaper’s staff he agrees to embed himself at the historic black dorm to spy on Sam and her struggles against the racial integration of the dorms. As previously mentioned, homophobia is discussed as a subplot in this series and is explored through the narrative of Lionel Higgins. His story starts in high school where he is ridiculed by other Black males for “effeminate” mannerisms, as well as, his avid interest in sci-fi characters. This narrative of toxic masculinity permeates the Black community.

To begin, a white woman named Erin Gruwell decides to take up teaching at Woodrow Wilson High School two years following the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. She arrives on the first day to find out that her class is full of “at-risk” high school students— some of which are just out of juvenile hall and have very poor grades. These are kids who have segregated themselves into racial groups so badly that they can’t even sit near each other in the same classroom or walk by each other without getting into fights.