Discussion Question #3
Today, people that are “other” or “different” are praised. But “being different” today is very much an oxymoron because there are so many others who are “different.” Being eccentric or free spirited just takes you out of one crowd and puts you in another. You’re never so different that you’re alone–which is good because loneliness, real loneliness, the inability to truly connect with another living soul, is too much for a person to take. You may feel different or misunderstood by the people around you, but we have the internet and the ability to communicate with virtually any person on Earth. The Garie children, specifically Clarence, had no such luxury.
After the Stevens kick him out, Clarence gets his first taste of “otherness,” and not just “otherness” but supposedly inferior otherness. Until this point, he has never acknowledged the difference in his father’s and mother’s skin tones. In fact, when he hears the Stevens call his mom the N word, he tells Mrs. Steven that if his mom is one, then she is one also. Now this difference has been brought to his attention, and he’s coming to the realization that he, too, is going to suffer from the effects of it. This, I feel, will hurt him immensely in a two major ways as he grows up and experiences more racism.
- I think this might hurt his relationship with his mother. After being sent away from the Stevens, Clarence contemplates going to see Emily, but he decides against this usual course of action in favor of sobbing himself to sleep. (Poor baby. I want to give him all the hugs!) There are no signs of resentment yet, but I fear it will only be a matter of time.
2. I think this will hurt his education/development into a gentleman of society. We are already seeing signs of this what with the school teacher kicking he and his sister out of the “white people” school, but this might also diminish his intrinsic desire to grow and learn.
Tangent: In this respect I see Clarence Garie and Charlie Ellis as foils of each other. Clarence grew up in a wealthy and sheltered home; Charlie grew up in a not so rich home, and he’d always known “his place.” Clarence is now experiencing racism and is getting kicked out of school; Charlie has always known racism and is being offered a chance at advanced education. I don’t know what the future holds for the two of these boys, but I have a feeling that their fates are polar opposites of each other.
If any of you choose to respond to my post, I have a question of my own I’d like for you to answer: Did Mr and Mrs. Garie “ruin” Little Clarence and Emily by not exposing them to segregation and racial prejudice sooner? Or did they do right by protecting them for as long as they had? The old home-school question, am I right?
My Thoughts on African American Literature 
Rachel, you raise an interesting question at the end. It’s hard to know which would have been better for Clarence Jr. If his parents had deliberately exposed him to racism or put him in situations where he could observe it, that just seems cruel of his parents to do. But they should have had “the talk” with him at the very least. There’s an eye-opening chapter in Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give when Starr’s father sits her down for “the talk.” Rather than a talk about the birds and the bees, “the talk” for their family and for many if not all African American families is about educating children on the realities of racism and what to do when they find themselves on the receiving end of anything from microagressions to police brutality. A far different talk than the one my mother had with me! Little Clarence really could have used that wisdom. And will need it in the future.
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