Now on to another story and a different character in Palo Alto. This character is a boy named Jeremy who is in the tenth grade. Although the story revolves around an incident in his United States history class, that is not really what the story is about. In the beginning of the story his U.S. class is doing a skit where each student represented a state during the civil war. Jeremy is one of the southern states and is not on the 'good side' as he puts it. The students are supposed to pretend they are in the civil war time and they're supposed to give reasons to support their view on slavery. Jeremy, being one of the southern states, argues his points as a southerner would during that time. This angers some kids in the class and Jeremy gets a little too it, he ends up saying a racist slur. Jeremy at the time, was just trying to impress a girl by being funny, because the class seemed to know he was only joking; even his teacher was not mad.
The next day Jeremy is confronted by a boy named Lewis and his friends in the locker room. Lewis was the only black kid in their U.S. class. Lewis seemed to pay no mind to Jeremy in class the day before. However Lewis and his friends, who were also black, were not happy. They basically beat the heck out of him and leave him in the locker room.
I found this story really interesting. Racial tension is everywhere, and when you mix that with immature teenagers, it is not surprising things got out of hand. I know this sounds like a story that might have a lesson, or moral point to it; maybe it does to an extent. However, I kinda feel like this story is more about adolescents in some way. Like immaturity and emotions just got the best of everyone. I'm sure situations like this happen in a lot of history classes because of the subject matter.
Note the title 'American History". I sort of think this story might represent how even though our history is behind us, there is still racial tension, just like there is in our history books.
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