Outsider In Society example essay topic

Outsiders There are so many ways that someone could be considered an "outsider" in society. Such as, Henry Louis Gates Jr. who wrote "In the Kitchen", Brent Staples, "Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Spaces", and Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face" are perfect examples of being an "outsider". For Henry Gates, "The Kitchen" was something that they didn't want to have anymore because it was a way of showing that the Blacks were different where different form the whites. You would either have to remove it or us some kind of formula, which kept it down because the kitchen was "the very kinky bit of hair at the back of your head" (123).

Gates said, "If there ever was one part of our African past that resisted assimilation, it was the kitchen" (par. 7). The reason Gates says that is because they didn't want to be considered different and they wanted to live like the whites did when he was a little boy. Having your hair done was very popular and everybody wanted to have where their hair done. "Everybody I know as a child wanted to have good hair.

You could be as ugly as homemade sin dipped in misery and still be thought attractive if you had good hair" (par. 15). Brent Staples was considered an outsider because of his color and nationality. Staples says, "One day rushing into the office of a magazine I was writing for with a deadline story in hand, I was mistaken for a burglar. The office manager called security and, with an ad hoc posse, pursued me through the labyrinthine hall, nearly to my editor's door" (par. 10).

Just because of his color and hurry he was in some people might talk it the wrong way. "I entered a jewelry store on the city's affluent Near North Side. The proprietor excused herself and returned with an enormous red Doberman pinscher... ". (par. 11). There are people out there in today's society that still judge African Americans with racism. This has been hard for the African Americans because a lot of people have always looked to them differently because of their reputation society has developed.

With Lucy Grealy who wrote "Autobiography of a Face" was an outsider because of what happened to her face through struggling with cancer as a young child. "That first day I walked a small pinto in circle after circle, practically drunk with the aroma of the horse. But with each circle, each new child lifted into the tiny saddle, I became more and more uncomfortable, and with each circuit my head dropped just a little bit furthering shame". (par. 13). The reason she was "in shame" was because she was dealing with certain health situations that other children didn't know or understand what she was going through. The looks that the children gave her were because of what she looked like due to the surgeries.

That's what made her feel like she was loosing her self-confidence and hard for her to have the pride to keep moving on. As a child Grealy like going to parties, but did not like the children at the parties. "The kids at the part were fairy young and, surrounded by adults, they rarely made cruel remarks outright. But their open uncensored stares were more painful then the deliberate taunts of my peers at school, where insecurities drove everything and everyone like some looming evil presence in a haunted machine" (par. 15). The intense glares are what made her feel like an "Outsider".

Being an "outsider" is something that Gates, Staples, and Grealy all had some kind of experience in throughout their life. Weather it was good or bad (mostly bad) they have become stronger mentally and physically.