“Why wasn’t I starting on the football squad this season, no matter how many passes the other guy dropped? Tell me we wouldn’t be treated different if we was white. Or Japanese. Or Hawaiian. Or fucking Eskimo.”
I started to connect dots as I was reading. In Obama’s school, there’s racism but it’s in disguise. The quote above stood out to me because even if Obama wasn’t able to join to football squad for whatever reason it was or get any female to go to the dance with him as he wanted, part of it was bout race including how he was one of the black men who went to his school and the rest were everything other then black. Ray believed differently, he believed that it was about race it was about the actions and the way they played their roles and bit about appearance. But to me, it’s more than just that and that includes race, and not many like him were accepted in schools like Obama in his time. And this also included coaches and teachers.
“I’d made my share of friends at school, gone on the occasional awkward date; and if I sometimes puzzled over the mysterious realignments of staus that took place among classmates, as some rose and some fell depending on the whims of their bodies or the make of their cars , I took comfort in the knowledge that my own position has steadily improved.”
Obama had been proud of himself wether or not things went wrong for him. He had made friends in his school hed already went on several dates etc and all of that comforted him. He felt he accomplished a lot in his “position”. What he meant by “position” was his race, being black in his environment. Being black in his environment isn’t an easy accomplishment bit for Obama it was different.
In the first paragraph I mention this exact same reasoning. In Ray’s opinion it wasn’t about being black. That wasn’t the reason why he was being treated differently but for Obama it was, and Obama was right. With their environment its hard to tell but it was real clear for Obama. He explained he was comfortable with the positon he is in, hed already experienced most others couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to do in his position and by “position” I mean being black. What confuses me most is why Ray thinks differently.
Your answer is confusingly written. For example, you write: The quote above stood out to me because even if Obama wasn’t able to join to football squad for whatever reason [actually basketball and he had joined he just was not in the starting line-up] it was [uinclear] or get any female to go to the dance with him as he wanted, part of it was bout race including how he was one of the black men who went to his school [unclesr] and the rest were everything other then black.
Also I would like you to pick quotes that are not obvious, that lead to deeper meaning. Think about the quotes that I choose to discuss with the class.