Hypocrisy

As a young child, my mother was a smoker. So was my grandmother, and a few of my aunts and uncles. The smell never really bothered me, but I remembered the smoke would hurt my eyes if I tried to get close to her shortly after she had lit up. 

One day I asked her to stop. 

At first it was just because it sometimes hurt my eyes. As I grew older, I was taught of smoking’s more drastic, life-threatening effects, and I would ask my mom to quit on a more regular basis.

I worried about her health a lot. 

It took years. She never tried to do it cold turkey, but she quit. 

When I reached middle school, I smoked some, with friends whose parents still smoked. They could bum entire packs at a time. I hated the taste at first (as does everybody), but smoking in the woods with my friends soon became a small way of rebelling. I was not thinking about the future effects on my health. I was not remembering how hard my mother worked to quit smoking, either. 

I was being a hypocrite. 

Luckily, I was eventually sent to private school, which meant I did not spend as much time with my rough customer public school friends. Consequently, I kicked my bad habit fairly quick....

Racism or Bitterness?

Is Troy Maxson racist? I don’t think so. I think, in Troy’s time (the 1950s, at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement) and culture, there is a difference between being racist and being bitter. I think Troy is the latter, considering he was too old to play major league baseball by the time African-Americans were allowed in. As I read Fences, I noticed how Troy’s bad-mouthing of the “white man” usually arose when he talked about sports, baseball and football in particular. He was rejected by the mainstream, and now is just plain pessimistic about his own son’s athletic aspirations because he has been there. 

He was told by White America that he was not any good and he bought it. Hence, the career as a lowly  garbage collector. It is not that he does not believe in Cory’s ability as much as he does not want to see his dreams crushed, and so this is why he urges his son to learn a trade and get out of the white man’s way. Just keep your head low. Just work, and accept that you will never be one of them, seems to be Troy’s philosophy. Times have changed, though, and so have the attitudes of African-Americans thanks to the Civil Rights Movement and the end of racial segregation in America.