Blog 11

I was disgusted by the amount of blind hatred and violence towards the African American race after reading  “As the Lord Lives, He Is One of Our Mother’s Children.”  How can one be have so much hatred towards a race?  How can America be a free country when the citizens are acting like savages towards one another?  Where is the American Dream in this era?  I just do not understand how the police officers and white men justified their actions.  I was overwhelmed as I read “somebody planted a long knife in the body of a little newsboy for no apparent reason”(245).  That was an innocent boy who had never committed a crime.  I am tempted to relate this era to the Holocaust, even though it makes me feel ashamed to do so.  I would have never thought I would compare anything in American history to the atrocious acts of the Holocaust.  I have always been proud to be an American, proud to live in this country but now I am not so sure.  This short story was written in 1903, when my great grandparents were alive.  Did they take part in these mobs?  Did they have blind hatred to anyone who had darker skin than their own?  Were they murdering black children on the street just because they had the power to do so?  I sure hope they did not, but I will never know the answers to the questions running through my head.  I am so thankful for the way my parents raised me, to look beyond appearances and know someone for their character.  For the first time in my life, I am truly ashamed to be an American.