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Post by dianarmartinez on Jun 24, 2024 0:33:04 GMT
The first part of this book was hard to read. I had a hard time with three major events.
I couldn't imagine how difficult was for Fred to endure the abuse of the three policemen. I was surprised how the police officers thought during this event. He was beat and coerced into confessing a murder. He was taken back to the crime scene but he wasn't conscious to make decisions or to rationalize his environment.
The second event, it was the police officers thinking "No one can say we mistreated him if we let 'im see his old lady, hunh." I cannot wrap my head around them thinking that Fred seeing his wife would make them look better. I think that it is insane to believe that or make yourself believe that. How can one be used to the abuse and anything showing compassionate, it doesn't matter how big or how small, it will make the other one seem better.
Lastly, the baby in the sewer. We don't really know what kind of situation it was for the baby to end up in the sewer. We can only assume that the baby was a reflection of humanity. The way humans can be so heartless as to abuse someone or dispose of someone.
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Post by shelbygraham on Jun 24, 2024 14:26:55 GMT
It was challenging for me to get through the first part as well, and it made me think of how many times events like this occurred and are still occurring today. The police officers had a very backwards way of thinking and it can be seen in all of their actions and decisions and how they treat Fred. Unfortunately, Fred is forced to leave his entire life behind because of these three men. I wonder how often our own lives change drastically due to the decisions of other people. And it is the same for the baby in the sewer.
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Post by gillianlaird on Jun 24, 2024 16:45:54 GMT
I agree that the first part of the novel was extremely difficult to read. What bothered me the most was the behavior of the police officers. The way I took their actions is that they did not want to do their job. Instead of putting in the time and effort to actually investigate and find the person who committed the crime, they would rather give into their prejudices by beating and coercing a man into admitting to something he did not do. While his race absolutely plays a part in the plot of the story, I definitely think that Daniels was just in the wrong place wrong time. However I also wonder whether the cops knew of his presence as an employee next door to the crime scene and decided he was guilty long before they even saw him walking home. Maybe they were waiting for him. Either way, one has to wonder whether the cops actually believe their own conviction or not. The idea that they are simply being prejudiced and lazy is something that really sat with throughout the novel. As for the baby in the sewers, I wonder if that is meant to be some sort of foreshadowing on Wright's part.
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Post by mjunious on Jun 25, 2024 14:05:38 GMT
The beginning definitely did a great job in eliciting visceral reactions in the way the policemen treated Daniels. Obviously treating people this way is completely wrong, but it highlights also the existential decisions of doing the "right" thing. For the policemen, it is more important for them to get a conviction than to actually solve the crime. Even though they preyed on prejudices to help them do this, the way that they disregard Daniels when he first goes back to the police station makes me think that they are, in their own way, victims of society as well. Likewise, for the person who discarded the baby, may have had something pushed them to doing that (again, not excusable). Because we see Daniels' reason for his moral transformation we are more understanding of his behavior. Ultimately, I think the existential commentary, in addition to the main story, also makes us ask "what is right? and how do we determine what is right?" as we try to fit into society.
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Post by Dr. Nemmers on Jun 25, 2024 15:16:08 GMT
One thing to add here is that we can really read Fred Daniels's treatment at the hands of the Chicago police as an overall indictment of authoritarian fascism, which was at its zenith during this time period. The notion of having a powerful, arbitrary, efficient and evil force that was ruling over one's life was a reality for many people around the world, in areas as diverse as Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia, etc.
(This sort of thing happened on a smaller scale in the U. S..... we'll be taking a look at the U. S. "internment" camps for Japanese Americans later this semester). (And, as we see here, many African Americans lived under de facto fascism for huge swaths of American history).
Obviously the Nazis are the most prominent example (and an outlier), but I don't think we can go so far as to call what Fred experiences as "fiction," since experiences of arbitrary tyranny were somewhat common!
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