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When Coates explains the fear of his life at the 7-11 it was easy for me to understand. The boy in the ski jacket at the 7-11 wanted to state the power he had by pulling out the gun showing how easily he could of taken Coates life. The reason for that boy doing that is because he fears life to just as much as Coates does, but his way of expressing this and feeling secure was by pulling out that gun showing his power. Coates explains how he was so shocked from what happen that he didn’t tell anyone what happen and just try to process what happened to him all that day.The differences that Coates describes between the experiences of the little white boys and his owns is that they live in a different type of environment. Where in their world the only worry they have is not getting poison oak on them. For Coates he has two worry about the destruction of his body that other can inflict on him.“Comparing these dispatches with the facts of my country was a galaxy and this galaxy stretched from the pandemonium of west Baltimore to the happy hunting grounds of Mr. Belvedere. I was obsessed over the distance between that other sector of space and my own.” Coates calls this the American Galaxy because how different his life is from other people around the country.
The rules of Coates youth in Baltimore was to survive the neighborhood by learning simple head nods and handshakes. Coates explains how this was like learning another language. He had to memorize a list of blocks to no go to and sense when a fight was about to happen. He learned that phrases like “Shorty, can I see your bike?” was never a question but merely a statement stating that your bike is about to be taken. What toughness means in this context is being able to hold your own to the streets. Surviving the vast dangers the streets has to offer to your body, that toughness and the price of toughness is your life. These rules are a response to the American dream because it is the complete opposite of the life he lived. Makes it so much easier to want to be stuck in that dream because of how harsh live can be. ” I think I felt that something out there, some force, nameless and vast, had robbed me of…what? Time? Experience?” Coates feels that all the time he spent learning these rules to survive he could of been doing something else that he like for fun living a childhood that he wanted to and not want the streets wanted him to live.
Coates son’s experiences might be different from his own because his son never had to worry about the everyday struggle of surviving, staying on guard every moment of his life because if he stop the destruction of his own body would start to occur. His son didn’t have to experience someone pulling a gun on him just to show him, his place in life. Most importantly, his son don’t have to worry about his time/ experience being robbed from him because he had to learn the way of the streets to survive. Coates practiced the culture of the streets for survival only. The only similar experience they probably had was “dealing with the occasional roughneck on the subway or in the park.”
The boy in the ski jacket at the 7-11 wanted to state the power he had by pulling out the gun showing how easily he could of taken Coates life. The reason for that boy doing that is because he fears life to just as much as Coates does, but his way of expressing this and feeling secure was by pulling out that gun showing his power. Coates explains how he was so shocked from what happen that he didn’t tell anyone what happen and just try to process what happened to him all that day.The differences that Coates describes between the experiences of the little white boys and his owns is that they live in a different type of environment. Where in their world the only worry they have is not getting poison oak on them. For Coates he has two worry about the destruction of his body that other can inflict on him.“Comparing these dispatches with the facts of my country was a galaxy and this galaxy stretched from the pandemonium of west Baltimore to the happy hunting grounds of Mr. Belvedere.
