Whether people are black or white, rich or poor, do not let others beliefs shut down what potential someone has. Never let the difficulties in life demolish one's future but help us learn and thrive in life. In Finding Forrester, Jamal and The Man in the Window formed an indestructible bond helping each other throughout life. Breaking the bad habits each one had, and helping one another with choosing the best pathway for what is ahead of them. Everyday, everyone frequently brings themselves down from believing what assumptions people make, letting go of our own potentials and opportunities. Not to forget that everyone has to face their doubts to reach the greatest potential within them. In the movie, “Finding Forrester,” Jamal and William …show more content…
It all began when Jammal had the chance to transfer schools for better opportunities from grades to how he played on the basketball court. His old school never really thought about how different Jamal was from the others because Jamal never wanted to show how wise, or knowledgeable he was. As a community today, people are judged from where they come from and what they look like. To me, this shouldn’t matter; everyone should have the same amount of opportunities as one another. People may never know what someone is capable of if you don’t get to know who they are. Just as Berardinell (2000) says, “Although his streetwise background makes him a social outsider amidst a sear of rich, pampered kids, Jamal's performance on the court and in the classroom earns him the respect of many of his teachers and peers” (p. 1). Since he started this new school, he has been misjudged for his capabilities and creativeness on writing. Not only was Jamal the type of guy that liked to show his intelligence with others, but he always wanted to fit in with the crowd; therefore, he shut down the better opportunities he was given …show more content…
After Jamal meets William, they formed an unbelievable bond with each other. This bond has helped one another learn and help find each other's potentials when they couldn't find it themselves. They never gave up on who they were from knowing how much potential had inside of them even though they couldn’t find the way to express it. A huge turning point for Jammal came along after meeting William Forrester. Not only did they find each other coincidentally, but also formed an everlasting relationship. As time went on, Forrester helped Jamal with his writing while Jamal helped William to crack his shell and get out of his apartment and break his bad habits. As Movielocity (2001) says, “Sometimes it’s the people you find, sometimes it’s the people who find you” (p. 1). From having this special bond, they began to help each other through life and all of the hardships that have came along. After all, meeting the Man in the Window was not a coincidence. The day came when Jamal had the chance to move onto the championships with two last shots. Thinking about the decisions for his future, Jamal intentionally misses the shots. If he made these shots, the consequences from plagiarising will make its way to humiliation. On the other hand, if he missed the shots nothing will come up of the plagiarism; nevertheless, his opportunities would be lost from
“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.” This quote is by Booker T. Washington. In the book “Up from Slavery” Mr. Washington was a poor African American man who wanted an education. He was able to peruse an education, through hard work and perseverance. Then he wanted to help others also receive an education, by building a school.
As Chris McCandless once said, “I now walk into the wild,” a phrase that not only represents a future with unknown mysteries, but a phrase that finishes the puzzle of his and Martin Luther King, Jr’s life. When looking at a historical or inspirational person, you may notice they operated outside the usual bounds of society to achieve a particular purpose. Such is the case for McCandless and King. Although Chris McCandless and Martin Luther King, Jr both shared a fatal death, these men had many similarities and differences between how they reached success, encountered obstacles, and left an impact towards people's lives. Generally speaking, success isn’t just about what you accomplish in life, it’s how you accomplished it and the impact you leave behind.
In Wright’s case, he was continually discriminated and kept segregated for the majority of his life. To signify his naive childhood, he sold newspapers that incriminated and discriminated African Americans without his knowing. His father left him at a young age, and he was teased and harassed for being even remotely intelligent and yearning for higher education, yearning for a better life. He even describes that “Every word and gesture [Wright] made seemed to provoke hostility. […]. “ One detrimental individual told him “Who on Earth put such ideas into your n***** head?”(Wright pg. 147) For being valedictorian, his principal attempted to manipulate him to appeal to the Caucasian audience. His rebellious nature led to him reading his own speech; this serves in itself a precursor of Wright’s future impact on society. His isolation from society(“I had already begun to sense that my feelings varied too far from those of the people around me for me to blab about what I felt.” (pg. 306)), his well-written speech, his excellent grades despite the constant harassment
Jamal’s friends dare him to break into William’s house, and while he is there, he accidentally leaves behind his backpack containing his writings. Later, William throws the backpack out of the window back at Jamal. However, when Jamal looks at his writings, he finds that William had revised all of them. Jamal, filled with amazement, goes back to William’s apartment and asks him to look at more of his papers. William is skeptical at first, but as they become better friends William sees Jamal’s potential and teaches him to write because expressing himself through writing is in the best interest of Jamal.
Living a dream driven life is not easy in many aspects. It requires courage and devotion with various trials and errors. Numerous people allow others to make their lives unhappy by the judgments based on appearance, and or plain stereotypes. Judging and stereotyping others can leave positive and negative effects on them. In Brent Staples’ article “Just Walk On By” he talks about how “he can alter public space in unpleasant ways (Staples).” Public space is a social space that is generally open and accessible to people. There are several people who believe they possess a power to alter public space. Public space may be altered in positive and negative ways. Several people may believe that his purpose for writing this article is to inform people that every person is different and how unconscious prejudice and
Living in an environment where the crime rate is relatively low Dreamers do not worry about the daily protection of their bodies leaving room for their minds to be open to explore all life has to offer. Albert Einstein once wrote, “Education is not the learning of facts but the mind to think.” Being an educated black person is not always connected to background, many of the most success people living today have rags to riches story, yet what sets the black dreamers apart is their talk, their address and even at times their looks. Black dreamers’s protection lies in their voice, “You speak very eloquently to be black.” Or in plainer terms, “You talk like a white person.” A black dreamers’ protection lies in their state of dress, for who is going to gun down a man in a suit? When Coates describes his wife’s upbringing he says, “Perhaps it was because she was raised in the physical borders of such a place, because she lived in proximity with the Dreamers. Perhaps it was because the people who thought they were white told her she was smart and followed this up by telling her she was not really black, meaning it as a compliment.” (p.116) These are the people who become caught up in being black but not black enough to be subjected to police brutality. Bell Hooks writes in her essay Gangsta Culture, “On mass media screens today, whether
Through every single obstacle a person went through no one gave up. Colored people did not lose hope in becoming equal to white people because they knew they were capable. What the author was trying to prove was exactly that. Although blacks were slaves and were always belittled by white they proved to be more than what the whites thought they were capable of. They stood up for themselves and they did it in several events that occurred in the book. For example, in the chapter a black teenager, James Crawford, was not slightly intimidated by a deputy registrar that attempted to sound intimidating. In the conversation the registrar made some menacing remarks to this young African American teenager saying he would put a bullet through the teenagers head. Not afraid at all, Crawford valiantly told him if it happened he would be dead, but people would come from all over the world. This young man was not afraid to stand up for himself and was not going to tolerate it in any way. Malcolm X was another inspiration to African Americans for the way he stood up for them. He had a strong connection with the people who were influenced by him. In late 1964, Malcolm X told a group of black students from Mississippi, “You’ll get freedom by letting your enemy know that you’ll do anything to get your freedom; then you’ll get it” (Zinn 461). This quote connected to how
Throughout the film there were multiple conflicts such as when Jamal was going to get in trouble for plagiarism of a paper he turned in. Professor Crawford thought he had finally nailed Jamal but William came at an opportune time and helped him not only get out of trouble, but prove to Crawford and the other students how talented in writing he truly is. Since Jamal did not tell the professor about working with Forrester, William knew he could trust him again. According to Paul Clinton (2001), Jamal had the choice between following his dream or betraying a friend. (p.1). Jamal stood strong and went with his gut feeling by not telling Crawford about his secret alliance with his friend in order to maintain his athletic scholarship. Another instance of conflict would be when Jamal and William first met each other and started working with one another. William was skeptical of Jamal since he recently broke into his apartment, but by getting to know him they developed a deep friendship that erased the fact of him breaking into his property. This trust they developed solved the previous conflict between them. Movielocity (2001) stated, Jamal has a talent he hides from the world for fear of not fitting in. (p.1). Jamal has a special gift given to him from God, but he faced the conflict of being himself around his friends from the public school. Being yourself and trusting not only others, but trusting yourself is one
Jamal Wallace is introduced in the film as a typical black teenage male who goes to a low class school in the Bronx and really excels on the court as a basketball player. He always plays basketball with his friends in the parking lot. Jamal is dared to go into the apartment of a recluse who watches them play through binoculars. Jamal is caught, running away in fright. Not too many people thought of him as being anything more than that, due to the fact that Jamal makes mediocre grades in his school in the Bronx, he does just enough to get by and to maintain a “C” average.
In sports, there is no shortage of black success stories. Meanwhile, two black men of prominence in Odessa (who are not athletes) fell from grace. Willie Hammond Jr. (the first black city councilor and county commissioner) and Laurence Hurd (a minister and desegregation supporter) were glimmers of hope for the black community that were both snuffed out. Hammond was arrested on charges of arson conspiracy and perjury and Hurd is in prison for burglary and robbery, leaving a hole in the morale of the black community that was not repaired. These losses, combined the with negative news of black people circulated via media, made the possibility of succeeding in a white man’s world inconceivable. Yet, there is no shortage of black success stories in sports, like Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson; in every area that is not a “rich man’s sport”, black athletes dominate. To the poor children on the Southside, there is something very alluring about the “Cinderella stories” of men from poor black neighborhoods rising to prominence through sports. Based on these examples, there seem to only be two paths for a black teen to take: criminal or athlete. Many of these teens aspire to be sports stars and depend on nothing else because there is nothing else. Some may become the superstars they hope to be or they fall into ruin as Boobie Miles, Derric Evans, and Gary Edwards
Although racial injustice and segregation plagued the country, it did not stop Morgan from beating the odds and overcoming the pillar of obstacles stacked right in front of him. He is the very proof that there is nothing you can’t accomplish if you put your heart, soul, and mind to it. Garrett Morgan is a true genius and motivation to all the dreamers in the world who think they are limited by the people who surround them. His legacy will continue to bloom and grow, so that the world may know there’s nothing but themselves stopping them from making a
Brent Staples focuses on his own experiences, which center around his perspective of racism and inequality. This perspective uniquely encapsulates the life of a black man with an outer image that directly affects how others perceive him as a person. Many readers, including myself, have never experienced the fear that Staples encounters so frequently. The severity of his experiences was highlighted for me when he wrote, “It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto.” (135) Having to accept that fact as a reality is something that many people will never understand. It is monumentally important that Staples was able to share this perspective of the world so others could begin to comprehend society from a viewpoint different from their
First, racism still plays a big factor in today’s society as it did fifty years ago. Some might say that everyone has equal opportunity, but some people in America will never see that blacks and whites are equal. Humans have the tendency to judge what is on the outside before seeing who the person really is. The South is the main area where the darker colors mean there is less opportunity and lighter colors mean that there’s more. In today’s society the ability to attain the American Dream is heavily influenced by race. While it is still p...
According to James Baldwin’s “My Dungeon Shook: A Letter to My Nephew” African Americans cannot obtain their piece of the American Dream. Baldwin wrote a letter to his nephew in hope of guiding him through life. Baldwin had many words of wisdom to share, mostly words provoked by pain and anger. Baldwin wanted to teach his nephew about the cruelty of society. His main point was to teach his nephew not to believe the white man and his words. He wanted to encourage his nephew to succeed in life but not to expect the unassailable. By believing the white man one can not succeed but by knowing where one comes from will lead to success was the foundation of Baldwin’s message (243-246).
In the blockbuster movie The Blind Side, director John Lee Hancock brings to light an emotionally charged and compelling story that describes how a young African American teenager perseveres through the trials, tribulations and hardships that surround his childhood. The themes of class, poverty, and also the love and nurturing of family encapsulate the film mainly through the relationship that Mrs. Tuohy and Michael Oher build during the entirety of the movie. This analysis will bring together these themes with sociological ideas seen throughout the course.