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Yeltsin Loango

Professor Batty

English 101

May 30, 2017

Be Greater than the Haters

The world is unique, billions of people around it from different races creating this planet.

Around it you stumble upon people, that may not want you to move forward. Instead they wish

to see you fall and not be able to get up. In Still Water Saints by Alex Espinosa, a character

named Darrell of African American decent meets the father of his fiance which is white and

stumbles upon an issue where he proves his saint like characteristic with his actions. Darrell

meets his fiance Nancy Perez his senior year in college where there love grows for each other.

He overcomes prejudice , injustice, and discrimination making him greater than the hater.

Nancys, Darrells fiance, invites him to go over to meet her family. She has gotten news

from her mother that her father is on borderline death, for they have diagnosed him with diabetes

and his bad habits such as smoking is making it worse. When meeting the parents, he notices that

the father shows prejudice against him for the fact that his African American. This was seen

more of in the real world in the earlier times when interracial marriage was illegal.

Slowly interracial marriage was becoming legal in certain states, but it was till 1967 that

the supreme court decided to make it legal in all states. This ruling was seen after a couple of

different races decided to get married in a state where it was prohibited and taken arrested. In the

article, "Why Is Interracial Marriage on the Rise," explains how after they were taken arrested,

they decided to take it to the supreme court in 1967. The court case name was Loving vs
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Virginia. They ended up winning this case, changing the united states in a huge manner. This

ruling of the supreme court made interracial marriage legal in all the country.Since then the

number of interracial marriages not only between blacks and white but between all other races

has risen in a great manner. In 1980 the percentage of interracial marriages was about 4.8

percent, compared to 2014 where it's at 13.4%. Although it's legal now for races to mix in

marriage, there still that don't agree with it and see it negatively. I believe that when this is the

situation parents play a big role, and their opinions on it differ based on culture or past

experiences. That being the case in the life of Darrell, something that stands out is that although

the father has an issue with his daughter being with a colored man, the mother of the girl doesn't

really pay attention to that factor.

Imagine doing everything you possibly could do for the girl you love, just to realize that

her father isn't happy seeing you. Not knowing a lot about Darrell's past, the book does tell us

that he was a good person and graduated with high honors in college. Although the book doesn't

tell us anything negative about Darrel, he is faced with with racial injustice here. Not only can

this connect with Darrel, but easily with the times of today it is seen. It can be seen in number of

jobs both white and blacks have. Its proven in the article What racial injustice looks like..,

with stats that the black unemployment rate has been twice that of the white rate. Something

that stands out in this article is the graphs that are shown composed of statistics on the

unemployment between whites and blacks. To see that there is racial injustice in the real world

they checked both groups unemployment rate in different levels of how far they got with

education. In this graph we see that the unemployment level of blacks is almost doubled in each

level of education compared to the whites. This comes a long way because if both groups of
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people are putting the same effort to go as far to graduating at the highest levels of any school

they should be able to get paid either the same or around the same.

Something important to realize is that even though the father was angry, Darrell did not

say anything back nor do any action to threaten the man. If you were being discriminated, would

you be fine turning your back and walking away. Darrel shows power here and I think he's built

it from a young age. Maybe growing up he faced it and maybe it was harder for him, but I

believe he adapted to it and learned to be the bigger person. One of the places discrimination is

constantly seen is in sports. In an article by Doug gavinelli, former pro baseball player, gives us a

short example of when he faced discrimination at 10 years, The man not only hurls the N-word

at me with pizazz, he opens up a switchblade and threatens me(Glanville) Imagine being such a

young age and not fully understanding why this is happening to you. As humans we can't

remember everything that happened to us earlier in life, but theres things that will stick with you

forever. Reason behind this is because it affected your life in a dramatic way, and it's those

things you can't just erase. The writer of this article gives his experience how he would hear

name calling in baseball games, and how that fear stuck with him. Baseball is not the only sport

where diversity of crowds are seen. Theres also soccer a wide spread game played around the

world with players from different countries. An interview was made with a nigerian player by the

name of Muntari that has played in several teams was asked, How many time does he face

racism as a soccer player. His answer was all the time, what gets to me is that you could see

the pain as he talks. It's a very emotional interview that gets to any person seeing it. Although,

the negative comments were there in every game of these two players, they were strong,

successful, and proved that they were greater. The point to see here is that racial comments are
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always going to be seen, Darrell never committing anything to make the father think bad of him

faces these racial comments. Even though it may seem that he may not have been bothered, a

person can get a sense of the emotions Darrell must have been feeling.

People may say Darrell deserved to be treated like that because he didn't ask the father for

permission to marry his daughter. Although people may see Darrell negative, he is saint like

because of his actions towards the father after being discriminated. The great thing he shows is

when he pushes Nancy to go make up with her father. I think it took a lot of courage, knowing

what he had gone through, and still wanting his wife and her father to make up before it was too

late. I believe this is not only saint like to Nancy but to many others. I think many people can

learn from this. Even if the indifferences are against you, don't focus on yourself ego yourself for

once and put others first.

When being offended or mistreated, there's only two options, start conflict or turn

around and walk away. That is where you choose if what you wanna do reflects on how you

wanna be seen. Darrell to me is seen as an example, in the struggle, and when people offend you,

prove to them that you truly are the bigger person. Nancy was not able to forgive her father due

to the fact that he made racial comments and was not accepting of Darrell. When Darrell made

her see that he forgave her father, she saw the good in him. Darrell knew her father was on the

way of dying and did not want Nancy to have regrets. He helped save a relationship between

father and daughter.

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Annotated Bibliography

Bernstein, Jared. "What racial injustice looks like in Americas economy."The Washington Post.
WP Company, 11 July 2016. Web. 10 May 2017.

Glanville, Doug. "Red Sox, Racism and Adam Jones."The New York Times. The New York
Times, 05 May 2017. Web. 10 May 2017.

"Why Is Interracial Marriage on the Rise?"Priceonomics. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2017.