James tried to keep away from his family as much as possible because of his white mother and his stepfather's death. He couldn't handle seeing his mother in the state that she was in after his death. "I quit church and avoided my deeply religious godparents. I was the first kid on my block to smoke cigarettes and reefer." (page 138). Instead of getting over his problems and trying to deal with them, he ignored them. Forgetting all his troubles with substances was his remedy. "Reefer and wine helped me to forget any pain, and guilt increased, my problems with drugs worsened." (page 142). James knew the problems that smoking and drinking occurred and got in trouble with his mother many times. Soon, he learned his lesson and became tried to become clean. "I wanted to give up weed, but I couldn't. Weed was my friend, weed kept me running from the truth." (page 163). .
He grew up and matured. James learned from experience and kept on learning. He became a writer at many major newspapers and a musician. His success throughout his lifetime made his mother proud of him. She herself had over come many obstacles.
His mother, Ruth McBride, experienced religious discrimination as a child. She grew up in a protestant white community. The community hated Jews, which she was, and made fun of her any chance they got. "It was a problem from the moment I started, because the white kids hated Jews in my school. "Hey, Ruth, when did you start being a dirty Jew?" they"d ask. I couldn't stand being ridiculed." (page 80). Her father wasn't helping out her struggles in anyway. He sexually abused her whenever he had the chance. "Anytime he had a chance, he"d try to get close to me or crawl into bed with me and molest me." (page 42). She was too scared of him to tell her mother. Ruth had a "fling" with a black guy, that her father never knew about. If he would have found out, she would have been severely punished.
