Wes Moore's The Other Wes Moore

Words: 1465
Pages: 6

When the racial tension reached a high in the 1950s and through the drug/gang wars of the 1980s, many of a generation of African Americans men grew up with a stereotype of not growing up to do anything productive. For those who grew up in the time period, their futures were bleak, and many of them didn’t have a future in the first place. In this book, The Other Wes Moore by Wes more, is a biology about two men with the same name, and who grew up in the same neighborhood, who lived through the violence during the time. This biography, is just a sample or a glimpse to what growing up during these turbulent times was like. The issue that the author, Wes, and the other Wes, grow up with the issue of the metropolitan problems that was exacerbated …show more content…
A subtheme of this book, is paralleling the choice that both Wes make that decide their future. Although the Wes Moore who wrote the book did many bad/illegal things, he had one choice that deiced his life forever. While the other Wes Moore, had many second choice but in the end, the bank robbery which subsequently killed a police officer, ended his fate of never being able to make a free choice again. Wes describes choice in his book as “I guess it's hard sometimes to distinguish between second chances and last chances (Moore, 67).” This quote is the most important thing he says when dealing with choices, this was stringently placed when at the time, in the future, the choices of both Wes`s would affect their future forever and possibly couldn’t get a second chance. The subject of choice in a lot topics of African American men growing up during these times, many of them didn’t realize when that strange from boy to man is and didn’t know exactly when this strange would end. The whole system of committing crimes when you’re young is one thing where you could get off easily and they would be considered “delinquents” rather than actually dealing with the