Walker: White People and Well-educated Black Man
A well-educated black man, with dreams of making it in the world, is What Jerald Walker was determined to do. Walker had grown up in a community where opinions about “whites” were shared by everyone. Whites discriminated against black people and anything that was believed as bad by black people, was blamed on the white people. In order to succeed, Walker would have to “Be” like his brother Clyde. Clyde did not fit the “stereotype”, of a regular black man. His brother said things like, “whites aren’t an obstacle to success” and “only you can’t stop you”.
In Scattered Inconveniences, Jerald Walker is up against what seems to be a “redneck cowboy” that is trying to intimidate and scare because his family wasn’t from that part of the country. it turns out that the guy honking his horn and riding his bumper, is just a good Samaritan trying to prevent a washer from falling out of the back of Walkers truck. I think that Walker is talking from his own experience, when he states that everyone is a racist just by nature, he is saying that we all learn stereotyping from the people around us.
I don’t think that his statement is necessarily being a racist, I feel that everyone is discriminated against for something whether it be the color of our skin, the clothes that we wear, or the place that we live. I see myself being like Walker, just assuming this guy is out to hurt me and my family just because I’m a different race. Not fitting the stereotype, I would probably react the same, just get mad and then feel really bad for just automatically thinking the worse first.
