Reading Response

Is this story fair? Why/why not?
            
                   The story Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor explores the social issues of racism down south, in the 1930. The main characters name is Cassie, unlike the other African Americans her family owns their own land and doesn't share crop. Although they are well enough off,  her world is constantly shaken by people who are putting her down. This book is not fair for Cassie, because she is discriminated because she's black.

                 Cassie deals with a lot of things that are unfair at her school. For example, Cassie receives a reader in her class, but finds that it is an old soiled book, "Stamped on the inside cover of my book was a chart which read ...'#12, September 1933, very poor condition, nigra'. The blank lines continued down to 20 and I knew they had been reserved for black students." pg. 24-25. This situation is not only unfair to Cassie, but to all the other black students. Just because they are black, they get the old books that have been used by white kids for years in advance. Not until the books are in "very poor" condition do black students get to use them. I think that a persons skin color shouldn't determine the quality of their life. I think that is someone works hard, they deserve the proper rewards without regard to their appearance. I think that both Cassie and Little Man had the right to get mad that they were put down because of their skin color, and I think that the teacher is being ignorant to not see why her students were upset by the books.

              Another thing that is unfair in the book is just because Cassie is black she and her siblings can't ride the bus to school. Though this may seem not that bad, not only do the black kids have to walk miles to school on dirt roads, the white kids and the bus driver torment them. One example is "We also had to worry about the Jefferson Davis school bus zooming up from behind and splashing us with the murky waters of the road. Knowing the bus driver liked to entertain his passengers by sending us slipping across the road..." pg. 42. This situation is especially unfair because an adult is entertaining himself with the misery of others. Its just cruel that they have to worry about being splashed with murky water. It is so unjust that the white people teach the black children with such a lack of respect. I think that it is horrible to do this to anybody, let alone children,

                Reading this book I often found myself angered by the behaviors of a lot of the white people and how they put Cassie and other blacks down. I wanted to shake them and say "whats wrong with you? Everyone is the same! You're just being cruel".  It makes my stomach turn that children had to grow up in such unfair environments, where everything was just less for them because of their skin color. I don't even know what this country would be without the civil rights movement, and its one of the best things that happened to the south. I hope that eventually everyone can learn to be tolerant of other peoples skin colors, and no one will be judged based on that.