Christian Picciolini's White American Youth

1752 Words4 Pages

White American Youth is a gruesome story that captures the physical and psychological changes a human can unveil through the exposure of the ideals of racism, discrimination, and categorization. We will examine Christian Picciolini: as he explores the journey of his own self identity, eventually securing himself as the most powerful, violent individual in all of Blue Island. Christian finds himself falling for the persuasive ideologies of the White Supremacy movement through the connections of the individuals he meets along the way, as well as the desire for self identity, respect and admiration he hopes to seek from all who knows his name. Main Body I. The Cultural Stereotyping of Christian’s Childhood & Self Identity Christian Picciolini starts out in the story as just a no-named kid from the working class suburb of Blue Island. While attending St. Damien’s Catholic school in Blue Island, Christian placed himself as an outsider. “ The kids in Blue Island had each other, “they were all such good friends, a tight knit group of pals” (Picciolini, 2017 page 22). Christian “desperately wanted to be a part of something”, being confined to spending most of his early childhood days alone or …show more content…

Christian’s values were threatened when three black kids from the other side of Blue Island beat him up and stole his bike. Christian was enraged that “someone could come into my neighborhood and take what belonged to me”. (Picciolini, 2017 page 34), he states “ I got a black eye for it, but my pride was hurt more than anything” (Picciolini, 2017) . Without full realization Christian was subconsciously developing the racial stigma for non white individuals. He began to learn already that the influence violence had over people would make him notorious in his

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