In reading All God's Children by Fox Butterfield, it gave me a better understanding of how violent men all started and how the street toughness was passed down through the four generations that they lived upon. It made me know what really happened in the black community that involved crime, punishment and also, the circumstances of the criminal incidents. .
While I was reading this book, there were many cases where I would read an incident and just put the book down and just reminisce about friends that were involved in the same situation dealing with crime and punishment. I think this book is a historical perspective of violence in America. I think the level of crime is mutual with the violence now and the violence that was presented in the novel. We face violence everyday in our lives; it could be murder, or stealing, but I don't think that as time passes the violence gets worse and worse by the time passes. In the novel, Willie would always try to outdo the other boys, who were a lot bigger then he was. As of today, that goes on everyday in our lives. We would want to out beat the other opponent. If my friend does something bad, I would want to outdo what my friend does and do something worse than bad. Its just dealing with respect and your self-esteem. You want to build your self-esteem by crushing your opponent, which may cause some violence. .
With all the violence that we Americans had to face, I think it will continue to have an effect on the future generations because as we see violence growing in America the young ones will see whats happening, and follow or maybe just have that knowledge of what is going around the world. I think violence starts up when you see or hear anything that deals with violence, people will have ideas in their mind and its just embedded in their heads. As you hear the news, there are many incidents where you would just think to yourself and ask yourself, why someone would do something like that.
