I Hear Them Calling My Name

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Recommended: fear as the root cause of racism

The Fear of People

People fear not succeeding, negative activities in their environment, death, terrorism, etc, but from a multicultural standpoint, we as a whole fear change. Our human race is also fearful of difference. We fear the difference of our religions, color, race, and sexual preferences. We are afraid of things not in our norm and things that stick out in the world. The issue of change and difference is very prevalent in the book I Hear Them Calling My Name: A Journey Through the New South. This book was well written by Chester Fuller. You can really see this multicultural issue by the way fear controls the characters’ emotions directed towards other people with difference.
In the book, Fuller journeys through the South just after the Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s. He is assigned to travel and find any difference or enbetterment in the treatment of blacks since the Civil Rights Movement. His first experience comes when his car breaks down on a highway in deep southern part of North Carolina. He walks to a gas station to get his car towed and the only mechanics/tow men are white. At first he gets the feeling he’s going to be abused by these men. In his mind, Fuller is plotting where he’s going to strike the men when they attack him. Fuller is so scared and set in his ways that he doesn’t look past the man’s race, but is rather intimidated and brainwashed. They arrive back at the station with car and the mechanic asks what seems to be the problem. Fuller thought maybe the fuel pump or something really expensive. The mechanic proceeds back to the car and tinkers with a few things and the car is done is minutes. The mechanic could have possibly put in a new fuel pump among other things and cost Fuller a lot of money, but instead charged a whopping eight dollars. The thing with all this is Fuller’s views of the mechanic the whole time and his emotions of being ready to fight. This amazes me.
Fuller missed this man’s kindness and respect, because of his fear of difference. This fear still occurs today. The only problem is that it exists in many other things than race or color of skin. Socially we have had a major problem with violence in schools. This all occurs because of difference.

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