Black on the Block Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Black on the Block - Essay Example   Ã‚   Question 1 Mary’s main idea in the book, Black on the Block mostly focuses on the middle class people who were living a middle class lifestyle in Chicago. High percentage of the people who were in this group comprised of the blacks who were struggling to keep their standards as those of most Europeans who had high class lifestyle. These efforts were also aimed at reducing discrimination on the blacks due to their race. Mary claims that the blacks were not given equal chances as the whites but she forgot that this was not their land of origin. Mary therefore focuses mostly on the poverty of the blacks and the challenges the faced as a result of this poverty. An area in Chicago by the name North Kenwood-Oakland was the resident for both the rich and the poor. However, the number of the rich was highly increasing in the area. That was a great challenge to the people in the middle class level since it subjects them to a risk of being pushed away and looses their houses to the rich. Mary believed that that would subject them to more poverty but they had no alternative. Mary claimed that financial institutions would loan them but that could not be right since they owned nothing as they were in a foreign country. This discrimination blocked them from borrowing a loan from financial institutions that could have helped them in coming up with projects which could have initiated profit generation. They thought that the main reason for the discrimination of the black was as a result of their race and skin color but it was their home origin. The blacks did all they could to see to it that their rights as human beings were respected. They wanted to be given equal privileges like the fellow citizens. This led to riots in the streets of Chicago.    Question 2 Mary takes the reader through several things that were done to the black community living in Chicago and the problems they faced. She talks a lot of negative things concerning Chicago some of them being on how the whites were going to better schools than the blacks. She exaggerates this story so much on the negativity of Chicago. As she approaches the end of the story, she focuses mostly on the on the unity of the black community and how they worked together on fighting the discrimination that was subjected to them. This shows that she was very happy for the black since she was in their support. This proves that the research she did was not recommendable since she was biased and she favored the blacks. The reason for this was because she was also in the middle class as the African-America community.   What the blacks were going through was not discrimination since Chicago was not their land and that was the result for the ir poverty. However they were lucky to be treated as the whites after their demonstrations. Question 3 For an individual to be in a position of writing such a book, a lot of information is required. This can be easily proved by a lot of history that is contained in this book.   For instance, as Mary continues with her story, she gives a information in form of numerals and ratios to show the progress that the blacks were making in order for them to win this battle of discrimination. Within duration of twenty years, the black’s community increased from 21% to 99%, which was through interactions within themselves and also with the white. This increase helped them to be