Wes Moore (Blog Post Four––finish the book)
Please respond to the book in at least 300 words. You can respond any way you like, but you might consider the question below. What made the author Wes Moore traditionally more successful than the other Wes Moore?
In your response, consider the many influences on each Wes Moore’s life (such as family, friends, education, the neighborhood, and environment). Consider, too, each man’s personality and actions.
From Ryan Malloy
ReplyDeleteIn the book The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore, the two men, prisoner Wes Moore and author Wes Moore, are living two very different lives. Even before they were older, and other than the fact that one is in prison and the other is not, author Wes Moore had a very supportive family. They wanted their son to go far in life, and worked to get enough money to send him to private school and then to military school. The support if his grandparents giving up the money they had saved to buy a new house and giving it to Wes to go to good schools, had a big impact on how far author Wes Moore would go, compared to prisoner Wes Moore. I also think when author Wes Moore’s father died it made him feel that he had to do better in life, and be better than he already was.
Prisoner Wes Moore, on the other hand, didn’t have very many people in his life to steer him in the right direction, which led to him to make some poor choices that would put him in jail. He didn’t end up going to schools that were as good as those that author Wes Moore went to. Also, prisoner Wes Moore’s brother was involved with drugs and other bad things, and even though he told Wes not to get involved and to be better than that, it didn’t make a difference. He ended up getting involved to the point where he went to jail. I also think that the two Wes Moores have very different personalities. Author Wes Moore is very understanding, and a very friendly person. I feel like in a lot of situations prisoner Wes Moore finds himself not acting the way he wants to. He seems like he is more sad that he ended up where he did, and wants to be a nice guy.
shows how someone has to really have the support, and integrity to make it out of a drug filled neighborhood. It also shows the crucial difference of whether your father chooses to leave you or is forced to leave you.
ReplyDeleteThere are two versions of the Wes Moore stories, the author Wes Moore and the prisoner Wes Moore. I think one of the major differences between the author and the prisoner is that the author didn’t go to a public school, he went a private school, and the military school. His family and friends were so supportive of him that they scraped together all the money they could to send him to military school. Military school helped him make friendships outside of the drug world , the education gave him opportunities to do things in his life, that he would have had a harder time getting, he learned to have mutual respect, and he learned how leadership feels.He got to have an education that showed him how things should be.
Prisoner Wes Moore is a different story though. He never had the opportunity to go to a private school, so he had to go to public school. Even though he had a supportive mother, and a supportive brother trying to keep him from the drug world, it wasn’t enough. Since he never went to military school he didn’t get the opportunities that the author had, he never made friendships out of the drug world and most importantly he didn’t learned the things that the author did. The thing I truly think that the thing that made the difference between the two is that the author’s father died and the prisoner’s father chose to leave him behind.
Author Wes Moore and Prisoner Wes Moore ended up leading two very different lives. One part of their lives that played a large role in where each of them ended up was education. Author Wes Moore’s family made so many sacrifices to make sure he got a solid education that would allow him to go far in life and be presented with a world of opportunities. Prisoner Wes Moore wasn’t as fortunate and had to go to a public school in a dangerous environment, and since he wasn’t removed, got sucked into drug dealing. Later, prisoner Wes Moore looked to his friend Levy for help and they both enrolled in the Jobs Corps Program. Wes seemed to finally be getting his life back together because he was very motivated to do well for his daughter. I think that the fact that Prisoner Wes Moore didn’t have anyone to help him or act as a mentor, is what caused him to crumble and unsuccessfully get out of drug dealing. Not having anyone there to help get him out of his rut of having to provide for so many people, caused him to feel sad and alone, and so he resulted back to drug dealing because he felt there was no other escape and that was his only way to provide. By that point, prisoner Wes Moore seemed to have given up hope, while author Wes Moore was being helped and guided in the right direction by many people in his life. Having that help from those people, that support system, helped lead author Wes Moore to success. When author Wes Moore was studying abroad in Africa, a conversation he had with “Mama” really fascinated me. The part that fascinated me was when he was talking to her about how she seemed so content with her life even when she was surrounded by poverty, depression, and segregation, and he says, “Knowing when to fight and when to seek peace is wisdom”(168). I think that line perfectly describes the line that separates the paths author and prisoner Wes Moore ended up on. Knowing when to do the right thing I think is someone author Wes Moore inherited from his family’s help throughout his life, whereas prisoner Wes Moore didn’t know how to accept and deal with the environment he was living in so he resorted to violence and drugs.
ReplyDeleteI think that author Wes Moore is more successful than prisoner Wes Moore because his family stayed together and was given more opportunities to go on a different path. For instance, he was given the opportunity to go a better school than prisoner Wes. School definitely played a big role in Author Wes Moore’s life. He was sent off to go to a Military academy. This was helpful because it made him able to be more disciplined and respectful. Military academy helped him because he was not living like prisoner Wes and was not getting into the bad habits that he might be getting into living in the neighborhood his family was living in. Having a supportive family definitely helped him go onto the right path. His mother had to move in with her parents and work multiple jobs. All that just fueled her desire to give her kids the life that she never had.
ReplyDeletePrisoner Wes Moore was living the life that Author Wes Moore could easily have lived. He was dealing drugs and became a father in his teens. He was becoming a younger version of his brother Tony by dealing drugs and living in a very economically depressed neighborhood. With nobody to look up to other than his brother, he starts living a “free” life, with nobody to discipline him he begins to do whatever he wants and impregnates a girl when he is only a teenager. Then becomes and grandfather when he is in his thirties. Living this life gave him more opportunities to go on the wrong path rather than the right.
I think that both of their lives could have easily been turned around for better or worse if they had the support they both needed. Most of the support needed would come from their family and since prisoner Wes Moore did not have a supportive family, he ended up the was he did. I believe that both boys could have swapped stories if they had just grown up with different parents.
I thought that the book was very slow at first, but it started to pick up speed once the Prisoner Wes Moore started dealing drugs and the Author went to Valley Forge. All in all, it is a very unique book and an interesting way to look at how the paths of two black boys in Maryland diverged so dramatically. I liked it.
ReplyDeleteI think that the biggest factor regarding the divergence of their futures was the differences in their education. The prisoner Wes was a high school dropout who got his GED after fathering 4 children. The author Wes went from private school to military school to getting his associates degree to going to Johns Hopkins University. Another huge factor was the differences in their development of discipline. The author Wes became extremely disciplined when he went to Valley Forge, even if it took him awhile to get it, but the prisoner Wes had no such experience to teach him discipline. He ended up dealing drugs and fathering four kids as a result of local flings. Both of those differences stem from their mothers. The author Wes’s mother made tremendous sacrifices and put herself under a huge financial strain to send Wes to private and military school, but the prisoner Wes’s mother did no such thing. That choice that their mothers made: choosing financial stability now over a good future for their sons later, ended up being the biggest influence on the paths that each Wes Moore took.
The two Wes’s lives also have similarities. Their fathers were both absent, but the difference it made was that the prisoner Wes had Tony, a drug dealer, as a father figure but the author Wes had no such thing. They both grew up surrounded by poverty and drugs, but the author Wes was able to escape it when he left for Valley Forge. The Prisoner Wes wasn’t able to escape it, and he ended up succumbing to it.
At the beginning of this book I thought that I would not like it. It started out very slow to me and took a little while to get rolling. After getting into the real climax of the book I found myself glued to it. I believe that the two main reasons that separated the paths of these two men's lives was family influence and education received. These factors could create authors of bestselling books or lifetime inmates of prisons. Author Wes Moore was lucky enough to have a family that supported him. Prisoner Wes Moore had a family that sometimes neglected to give him attention and love. His only role model was his brother Tony. Tony was a drug lord who was high at the chain of command in the drug ring. Prisoner Wes Moore looked up to Tony and thought that what he was doing was right. When these men lost their fathers at a young age, they both had the choice to seek out a replacement. Author Wes Moore's mother filled this gap. Tony filled Prisoner Wes Moore's paternal hole in his life. The lose of their fathers made a huge impact on their lives. Author Wes Moore's mother made the decision to send him to a higher education. This was triggered by her finding out about some of his street habits and the environment he was surrounded by. She sent him to a private school and then to Valley Forge. Valley Forge was the turning point in author Wes Moore's life. It forced him to give up his bad habits and assume the position of a cadet. Prisoner Wes Moore tried several times to escape the drug world but was unsuccessful. He assumed the role of a father of four and struggling to provide for his family. He thought the only way to provide for his family was to sell drugs. This ended up being detrimental to his life and caused him to go to prison. These two men could have very easily switched roles and gone down different paths. The effects of poverty and crime proved to be a huge issue in their lives and the things that broke these effects of drugs and crime where family support and the education that they received as children.
ReplyDeleteAuthor Wes Moore was clearly much more successful in life than prisoner Wes Moore. Author Wes went to school, finished high school, earned a very impressive spot in the army. He also did not get arrested and sent to prison. Both boys started in the same city, only a couple blocks away from each other, in virtually the same neighborhood. The one thing that I think made their lives so different was the sacrifices their both single mothers made to keep them out of trouble. Author Wes Moore’s mother worked at least 3 jobs to keep her kids in a private school where they would get a very good education and stay out of trouble, at least for a little while. Both boys were trouble makers and could not stay out of trouble, but prisoner Wes Moore’s mother did nothing but scold him and did not seem to make an effort to keep him out of trouble, although she did seem pretty disappointed with him. The other Wes’ mother took a very different route. When she did not know what to do with Wes, due to his getting in trouble, she sent him to military school. This put a significant strain on their family because military school costed more than the private school he had previously gone to with his siblings. His mother had to borrow money from her parents and so much more, just to make sure he stayed out of trouble. The two men also seemed to have different amounts of temper when they were boys. Author Wes never seemed to get into any fights or have any really big outbursts of anger. Prisoner Wes, on the other hand, had an extremely short temper. Once he got into a fight so bad that he was sent to prison for a little while, this was his first of many trips to the big house. I think the biggest influences on these two boys was their mother’s effort and their attitudes on life.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I think author Wes's mother was the difference. At the same time, though, I think it's an interesting point you make about prisoner Wes seeming like a naturally more angry person. That also could have played a big role in their different paths.
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