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In the auto-biography, Makes Me Wanna Holler, by Nathan McCall, the reader is put into the mind and life of a struggling, middle-class African American and the struggles he went through, the choices he made, and how he completely altered his life by deciding to succeed in life. McCall is very open and honest about what has happened to him and why he thinks so. This causes the book to be very controversial. I believe that most of what happens in this book is due to socialization and how McCall was raised and the environment he was in. I believe that his honesty and confusion do not justify all the crimes he committed in this book. Race is something that has been a main part of McCall’s life. Almost any situation he was in in the book had some sort of connection with racism. He began to realize that he was surrounded by racism at a very early age, this racial stratification led him down the wrong path. At this age, he began to see that whites were the favored race and that his skin would be a burden to him. For awhile, he was infatuated with the differences of whites and blacks, but after awhile, he began to resent it. I think what caused him to start to resent the fact that he was black was when his mother would make him and his brothers dress nicely and be on their best behavior when they went out to public places with whites and he noticed that all the white children got to run around like hooligans and misbehave and dress however they wanted. This seemed unfair to McCall and he yearned to be carefree and be a kid like the white children. When McCall and his brothers would get out of line, his mother must have caused some sort of confusion when she would say, “Stop acting like a nigger.” Another thing that confused and frustrated McCall about race and his place in the world was when he finally got to go with his stepfather and his brothers to work in Sterling Point, a wealthy, white neighborhood. His stepfather would go over there to earn extra money by gardening for different families. At first, he was really excited to go and be around white people, but soon after, McCall hated going to help. On his first trip, he experienced how people and class structure play a part on how people can humiliate and downgrade each other because of slight differences. The people he worked for would talk to him as if he was a child, and McCall thought the worst thing about it was is that his father allowed it, or put up with it.
Approximate Word count = 1816
Approximate Pages = 7.3
(250 words per page double spaced)
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