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Turning Around Negative Experiences in "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America" by Kiese Laymon

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How can it be that someone may not like you because you are different? For me it is hard to understand how someone can discriminate against another human being, for the reason that the color of his or her skin is different. Discrimination may seem as something from the past but this is a reality in this day in age that many people still endure. Discrimination affects people in several different ways such as creating fear, anger towards society, and in some cases even be ashamed of whom they are. Although we have negative experiences, difficult obstacles or meet people who will bring us down to our lowest points in life, I believe we can use these negative experiences to make us a stronger person, and make us want to reach our dreams, and to want to live life. "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America" by Kiese Laymon is a personal narrative story that takes place in Mississippi. Laymon gives his audience an insight on certain events that occurred from the age of seventeen until the time he moves away from Mississippi. Beginning with the day, he comes across John Deere who is a cop and almost gets himself arrested. When attending college they expel him for an essay he writes for the college paper that causes controversy. He also talks about the time his mother pulls a gun out on him, afterwards there is a moment where he pulls a gun out on himself, and he thinks about how the events are affecting him and the people in his life. Beginning with his first event,

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