Writing for a nation that is all about putting labels on people and objects, Richard Rodriguez …show more content…
Throughout Rodriguez’s adolescence Rodriguez struggles with issues of identity; “As a young man, I was more a white liberal than I ever tried to put on black. For all that, I ended up a ‘minority,’ the beneficiary of affirmative action programs to redress black exclusion” (Rodriguez 26). He is identifying more with white than black, but reaping the benefits of black minority. Rodriguez acknowledges the color of his skin, but he realizes his “Acknowledgment came with a price…” and “The price is segregation” (Rodriguez 26). Rodriguez describes a piece in the New York Times which depicts race, but it is concerned with Black and White (Rodriguez 29). In this section Rodriguez states he has, “not previously taken part in the argument, the black-white argument…” (Rodriguez 29). He claims to have listened to this argument and compares it to “a bad marriage through a thin partition” (Rodriguez 29). As Rodriguez spent his time hearing about this black-white argument, he made the inference that nothing can be made from it, but with Brown, something can be made of it (Rodriguez 29,