Little Failure

Throughout Gary Shteyngart's memoir we see him expressing his feelings about his family, his life and sharing his experiences with us. The struggles he faced with the pessimism of his parents, the hardships of migrating from a different country and adapting to the environment are all frankly common struggles many of us have. Our parents really expect the most from us & at times may seem unreasonable. There is no say to who's in the wrong in the whole parent-child situation. Every family handles situations differently & every set of parents & children are different as well. Gary's parents put him down most of his life by labeling him "Little Failure". They were not very supportive towards his passion for writing. I believe Gary's parents did indeed know he was success & truly an intelligent child, they just did not know how to express it. They wanted him to be better & not get too confident, as most parents do. Gary shouldn't have had to grow up with such a low self esteem however. He should've been reassured every now & then that he was worth something and not a failure. Many parents do not understand the right way to support their children and very so often allow their own personal thoughts & desires influence the way they act towards them. They often get so caught up in the life they wish they had for themselves that they forget to step back & look at the bigger picture which would be, What makes your child happy? They let it get the best of them & this leads to parents seeing their children as failures. Such hurtful words can be detrimental to a child's growth.

The Color Complex

In The Color Complex, it states that "in order for slavery to gain moral acceptance on the Englishmen lawmakers, it was essential to foster a belief that Africans were less than fully human". This is pure inhumanity to me due to the fact that it was out of their own selfishness that Whites wanted to engage in sexual relationships with blacks. When they started creating a population of interracial children they decided it was time to check their conscience? They decided it was a smart idea to pass antimiscegenation laws as if they were doing a huge favor to the Whites by separating them from the "lower life form" that was the blacks. If sex with blacks was considered beastiality, why were the Englishmen taking advantage of the enslaved women? The white slave owners needed something to save their conscience and make themselves feel better which is complete hypocrisy. For the black and whites that actually fell in love during this time period, extremely unfortunate and unfair. They should not be punished for the selfish acts of the White Englishmen. The African women certainly did not desire to be raped and taken advantage of. I think it is pretty safe to say that the real beasts here are the White slave owners.