Whats in a Name

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Zachary Burghart Summary and Response WR – 115 / Stetz-Waters 4/18/2013 What’s in a Name? In the essay “What’s in a Name? “, Henry Louis Gates discuses an experience in which he witnessed racism first hand. When Gate’s was a young “George“, He lived with his parent in Piedmont, West Virginia. Gates’ parent’s experienced discrimination regularly, especially his father. The specific example that Gate’s refers to in the essay involves an incident where a shopkeeper who was friendly with his father referred to him as “George,” a name that Gate’s, at the time didn’t know the meaning behind and couldn’t understand why Mr. Wilson was calling his dad that. Gate’s now realizes that it was used as a blanket designation for all African Americans. Although Gates’ father earned good money and could buy what he wanted for his family, there was nothing he could do about the level of discrimination he received by the people he had to interact with on a daily basis. It was “One of those things”, as Gates mother would put it. As I read this essay I was trying to think about the last time that I may have been racist or said something racist to someone, and I realized that I exhibit this behavior on a frequent basis, I catch myself treating people of different ethnicities differently all the time, I may not express the behavior verbally, but will in a non-verbal manner. The truth is, most people are racist or exhibit discrimination against people that are different from them all the time, it doesn’t matter if their skin is a different color or not. A person may be called a derogatory name or be treated differently depending on their social status and were they live; for example in this essay the Gate’s family live in a small southern town in what I gather the 1980’s, consisting primarily of Irish and Italian cultures, so what did the family expect to be treated with respect in

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