How To slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America

The essay, “How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America”, provided me with such a flurry of emotions while trying to comprehend his situation. The cruelty of reality for black individuals in our country is so apparent even for me who had lived in California and had rarely seen the racism that still runs rampant to this day. The irony and pressure that the main character faces while in college is a cruel one. To continually face discrimination and to be watched by the eyes of those who don’t have the color of their skin shows the post racism that still exists today. When he faces shooters and attempts to swing back at those who start fights, he is the one alongside his girlfriend to face the repercussions of a corrupted society that bends on doing what it seeks as good for themselves and not for others. This is especially seen when the President of his college tries to remove the anomaly known as his student by suspending him for a year for merely taking a book and returning it the next day when far worse crimes have occurred on campus. The tragic reality that the main protagonist faces is that of self survival, to not rely on others but to face it on his own and to try renewing his life in order to find himself a better path than the reality he had previously faced with regards to his family, to his fellow students, to his fellow officers, and to his discriminating population that continues to deny him and his race as people of this nation.