The Other Wes Moore Blog #8

The Other Wes Moore Blog #8

          The main theme in this chapter was life choices. In this chapter sadly Wes decided to make another terrible mistake that would affect his future and family. A sergeant was shot when he tried to interfere with the robbers. Four of them were arrested and Wes was one of them. He got arrested for a jewelry store robbing and was found guilty in the trial after lying about not being there. The guards placed their hands on Wes and shuffled him away. The hands of the state would stay on him for the rest of his life. Wes had spent much of his adolescence incarcerated, and he knew that occasional bids in the pen were part of the game. But he'd never figured this. Maybe it was because he‘d never thought long term about his life at all." This was the incident where Wes realized he really messed up and he was sentenced for life in prison. Now Wes couldn't get out of this tough situation he put himself in. While the other Wes was not in the best place in life the author Wes was in a great place that would affect his future positively. Wes met the director of admissions of John Hopkins University and the director helped him out a lot. He helped Wes get his acceptance even though his grades weren't the best and gave him a scholarship. Wes was very grateful and said " Having an advocate on the inside someone who had gotten to know me and understood my story on a personal level had obviously helped. It made me think deeply about the way privilege and preference work in the world, and how many kids who didn't have luck like mine in this instance would find themselves forever outside the ring of power and prestige." Wes also took advantage of great opportunities like studying abroad in South Africa. Being there changed his views in life and made him more thankful. Wes described his experience as "Living in the Bronx and Baltimore had given me the foolish impression that I knew what poverty looked like. At that moment, I realized I had no idea what poverty was even in West Baltimore we lived like kings compared with this (the shantytown in South Africa). An embarrassing sense of pride tentatively bloomed in the middle of the sadness I felt at my surroundings." Wes viewed life in another perspective and was thankful for where he was now. 

The Other Wes Moore Blog #7

The Other Wes Moore Blog #7

           The main themes in Chapter 7 was education and poverty. An example of education was "As I started to think seriously about how I could become the person I wanted to be, I looked around at some of the people who’d had the biggest impact on my life. Aside from family and friends, the men I most trusted all had something in common: they all wore the uniform of the United States of America…" Wes was becoming more focused in his education and he became the highest ranking cadet from over 700 students. Wes was becoming the leader he felt like he was born to be in the chapter it said "His quick success had Wes thinking differently about his life…Many of the other students were now looking to Wes for help with their GED prep, for assistance with their personal issues, and for friendship. Just as he had on the corners of Baltimore, Wes became a leader." Also Wes was thinking of more realistic goals like maybe being a writer since he enjoyed reading. Wes wrote 

“When you step on the court with players like Kobe Bryant or six foot eight point guards who can

dunk from the free throw line, your mind begins to concentrate on your other options,” The other Wes also really wanted a better life and wanted to get away from the drug and gang life. Wes went and got his GED and wanted to be able to provide for his kids. In the novel it said “While at the Job Corps Center, Wes had problems floating off the soft country air of Laurel. A year after graduating, he realized they had not disappeared – they’d simply returned to Baltimore, waiting for him to come back. In his absence, they’d compounded. Tears welled in Wes’s eyes but never fell. He’d realized long ago that crying does no good.” He realized his life choices before was still affecting his future and it was hard to get away from it. He felt like he had to be apart of the drug dealing and selling because he felt like he didn't have a choice since he wanted to provide for his family. Also the other Wes' realized how the mother of his kids was also affected by the drugs very negatively and didn't like her being apart of that life. In Chapter 7 it said "The sight of her coming off her high, stumbling to the bathroom, disgusted Wes. He saw this every day. The people who would line up around the corner for drugs. The people who would do anything to score. He knew these people because he was the one who got them what they needed. It was his job. And it pained him to realize that the mother of his children Cheryl was just like them…Wes was tired. The other Wes felt like he was stuck and had no way out.

The Other Wes Moore Blog Chapter 6

The Other Wes Moore Blog Chapter 6

On Chapter 6: "Hunted", in the novel The Other Wes Moore was mainly focused on the themes of  life choices and the importance of education . For example the Other Wes was still in the drug selling business and felt like it was a huge part of his life even though he was in so much trouble with the police already. In the novel it said "He was surrounded by some guys from his crew…He had to get moving, but he lingered. He liked the feeling of holding down a corner with his boys. It was the one place he felt safe, or at least in his element," This shows how the other Wes was so used to his crew that he felt like they were his family and would have each other's backs in any difficult situation. The other Wes also was out of juvie from shooting the and came right back the the people that were a bad influence on him but he thought the opposite. The other Wes believed "This was the crew. They would work together, fight together, stay together. An unbreakable bond united the crew for many members, it was the only support system they had. It was family." This shows how the other Wes felt about his gang he hung around with and the type of bond he shared with the people he felt was like a family to him." Another example of life's choices was from the author Wes was attacked because of his race and was hit in the mouth and got a broken tooth. The author Wes wrote "My mouth was aching. I was beside myself with anger and still confused. And embarrassed. Embarrassed to be called a nigger in front of my comrade. And embarrassed by my reaction. Because after being called a nigger and having my tooth broken, I'd decided to flee back to campus." This shows how the author Wes chose to be the bigger person and he didn't go attacking them or doing something to give revenge like he would've done before. It shows how military school changed him and was a positive impact on his life.  Also the author Wes knew how his decision really changed him as a person and he was very proud of himself. He said "The irony of the situation forced me to smile, featuring my newly cracked tooth. Years earlier, I had run through these same woods with all of my might, looking for safety, trying to get away from campus. Tonight, I ran through the same woods looking for safety, but in the other direction," Wes realized how his life changed and how big of an impact his education and future was to him. In the novel Wes wrote "I felt like being at military school was keeping me in a bubble, ignorant of what was
going on with my people on the outside. There was a comfortable distance between my life now and the levels of confusion that had engulfed me just a few years ago. This uniform had become a force field that kept the craziness of the world outside from getting too close to me, but I wondered if it was just an illusion."

The Other Wes Moore Chapter #5

             The fifth Chapter Lost was focused on the themes of life choices and importance of education. For an example the author Wes' mom decided to send him to military school, because of his behavior in school and the incident of Wes hitting his sister, which was an accident but she didn't believe that.  The author's mom had sent Wes to military school hoping he would get a better life whether Wes wanted it or not she wanted what was best for him. Wes tried running away multiple times when he got to the military school. The Sergeant told Wes he could leave and gave him a map with the wrong direction, just so he could catch him and made it into a prank. For an example Wes' reaction was “In spite of myself, I was impressed. I had never seen anything like that before. I had never seen a man, a peer, demand that much respect from his people. I had seen Shea demand respect in the neighborhood, but this was different. This was real respect, the kind you can’t beat out of people. That’s when I started to understand that I was in a different environment… It was a different psychological environment, where my normal expectations were inverted, where leadership was honored and class clowns ostracized.” Wes was slowly accepting the fact that he had to stay there to make his life better. The Other Wes was in a difficult situation, he met a girl named Alicia and they liked each other and later on she became pregnant. In the book it said "In Baltimore in 1991, 11.7 percent of girls between the ages of fifteen and nineteen had given birth. More than one out of ten. Wes also didn't feel burdened by the thought that early parenthood would wreck his future plans—because he didn't really have any future plans…But in some unspoken way, he did sense that he was crossing a point of no return, that things were about to get complicated in a way he was unequipped to handle." In cahpter 5 the Other Wes also had another girl on the side that he talked to and as he was walking her home one day and another guy started yelling and saying things to the girl and he ended up beating Wes. Wes went home and grabed his gun and started shooting with his friend involved too and he shot the man Ray. Wes knew he was going to get arrested especially becasue there were many eye witnesses and in the novel it said "Wes heard commotion downstairs and knew his time was just about up. He reached into the wooden drawer next to his bed and got a clean blue shirt with white stripes on it….Wes hurriedly smoothed the shirt down and put his hands in the air, not wanting the cops to think he was armed. He knew how that scenario would end." Wes knew what he did was very wrong and he was ready to face the consequences for the mistakes he made.

The Other Wes Moore Chapter #4

        The Other Wes Moore Chapter #4

           This Chapter mainly focused on the themes of was decision making and life choices. The author Wes got arrested because he was putting graffiti on the walls with his friend Shea since they were tagging the initials "KK", which was Kid Cupid and it represented Wes. The police caught them and arrested them. The author Wes said "The cops gave us a gift that day, and I swore I would never get caught in a situation like that again. A week later, Kid Kupid was on the loose again, adding my tag to another graffiti-filled Bronx wall." This proved the decision making Wes did and the consequences that followed up with them. Also there was an incident with Wes in school. The other Wes was getting into selling drugs, and his brother Tony could tell and was worried. For instance in the chapter it said "Tony had tried to keep Wes in school and away from drugs for as long as Wes could remember. But Tony was still deep in the game himself. Wes didn't think Tony was a hypocrite exactly he knew why his brother felt obliged to warn him off. But it was clear that Tony himself didn't have any better ideas or he would've made those moves himself." Tony was the type of brother that would always look out for Wes and warned him about the dangers because at the end of the day the decision making was all up to Wes. For an example it said "Tony was exhausted. Tired from the beating he just gave Wes. Tired from repeating himself. If you won‘t listen, that's on you. You have potential to do so much more, go so much further. You can lead a horse to water, but you can‘t make him drink right?…That was the last time Tony ever tried to talk to Wes about the drug game." This showed how Tony regreted his life choices but he wanted for Wes to be able to make a change in his life before it was too late, like how it later was for Tony. The author Wes had an experiance he wasn't going to ever forget which was getting arrested for the first time and he was terrified and he realized slowly what he was getting himself into. For an example he said “I became aware of how I had put myself in this unimaginably dire situation – this man now had control of my body; even my own hands had become useless to me. More than that, he had control of my destiny or at least my immediate fate. And I couldn’t deny that it was my own stupid fault. I didn’t have the energy for romantic rebellion – the
possibility of losing all control of my life was like a depthless black chasm that had suddenly opened
up in front of me.” This showed how Wes was slowly learning how his actions can affect him and cause him a lot of trouble. 

The Other Wes Moore Chapter #3

          From Chapter 3 both Wes' moved to different places hoping for a better life but sadly that's not what happened. An example of changes in his surroundings was “I was becoming too 

‘rich’ for the kids from the neighborhood and too ‘poor’ for the kids at  school. I had forgotten how to act naturally, thinking way too much in each situation and getting tangled in the contradictions between my two worlds.” This quote explains how Wes realized how his private school friends would never get along with his neighborhood friends because of their surrounding and life styles, which was another theme in the novel. Also the Other Wes was getting himself in a bad position which was trying weed and he tried to fit in with his friends, in the book it said “…he realized how time seemed to stop when he was high, how the drug made him forget everything else. And he understood, faintly, how addictive that feeling could be, and how easy it would be to make some money off selling that feeling to people who needed it.”This was an example for the Other Wes and this showed how instantly after moving he was near things harmful things, like drugs and gangs which was a big important theme. Another example that was similar for the Other Wes in making bad decisions and thinking them thoroughly was when it said "This game didn‘t require studying or exams. It didn‘t require a degree or vocational skills. All he needed was ambition. And guts. And, as Wes was soon to understand, and ability to live with constant fear." This showed how Wes was getting further with getting into drugs, and trying to get money from it caused him to want to do it more. Also another important theme was poverty and it affected Wes with his daily life, for an example it said "I tried to hide the fact that my family was so much poorer than everyone else‘s at school. Every week I sat down to create a schedule for my clothes. I had three good shirts and three good pairs of pants. I would rotate their order, mixing and matching so that each day I had on a fresh combination." These were some of the main themes in the third chapter in the novel. 

The Other Wes Moore Blog #2

The Other Wes Moore Blog #2

          This chapter "In Search of Home" was about both Wes Moore's and the themes it was most focused on were on obstacles, life choices, the affects of your surroundings. For an example in the book Wes's father passes away and he has to live without having the person he looked up to. While the other Wes moved to his grandparents house because his mom's grant got turned down. The other Wes played football with some people in the street with his best friend and one of the guys started a fight with Wes and punched him. Wes went and grabbed a knife while his friend Woody tried to stop him but he was too late because the police came and arrested them. Wes was always told to stand up for himself because in the book his brother told him “rule number one: If someone disrespects you, you send a message so fierce that they won’t have the chance to do it again.” That was a life choice Wes made that caused him and Woody to get arrested. But then he got bailed out by his father. Also another example of a life choice was “But no matter how tough he was,or how many corners he controlled, what Tony really wanted was to go back in time, to before he'd gotten himself so deep in the game, and do it all over again. He wanted to be like Wes.” This was the life choice that Wes' brother Tony made in which he regretted it later on his life and he wished it could go back to normal. This would also be counted as the affects of your surroundings because of the bad neighborhood him brother was influenced negatively.Tony told Wes “Yo, you need to take this shit seriously, man. Acting stupid ain't cool. He was looking out for Wes and didn't want him making the same mistakes he did. Even though Wes was near a bad area his brother Tony wanted to keep him on point instead of messing his life like him. Also this quote was an example about obstacles“Over half of the eight thousand residents lived below the poverty line. Mary shuddered every time she left the house and was putting her escape from Cherry Hill as soon as she got there.” This showed how unsafe it felt in that neighborhood and how Mary didn't really like the fact of her family living around that neighborhood.