Character Analysis Essay On John Deere

Laymon start his story when he is seventeen, five years younger than Rekia Boyd will be when she is shot in the head by an office duty officers in Chicago. Laymon and his friends Troy, Cleta, and Leighton grab some food from a McDonald’s on I-55. Over, there he holds the door open for a man he dubs John Deere, from the green John Deere hat he is wearing. Later the when they are on route I-55 John Deere drives up and yells “Nigger lovers!”, of course like anyone who has just been insulted from a man that they just helped the group of teenagers pull up next to John Deere and begins insulting him. John Deere, pulls out his sirens revealing that he is an under-cover cop. When the groups manage to get to Troy’s apartment complex the police officer are right behind them. John Deere tells Laymon to get out of the car, Kiese Laymon writes that the cop said “” Only you,” he says to me “You are going to jail tonight”” (paragraph 11). A couple of minutes later a white cop appears and tell the group that John Deere has been drinking too much.
This is wrong on many levels, first the group where doing nothing to have a racist phase called out at them. Second John Deere is a cop a person of the law, and justice he supposed to make people feel safe. Instead he goes after a group of teenagers, for little to no reason other than the fact they insulted him for
insulting them first. It is honestly pathetic; it doesn’t help that he blew his cover for a pair of teenagers for insulting him and nothing else. He is undercover, they don’t know that he a cop, they just know that he some random racist white male that has nothing better to do than insult a bunch of teenagers. That fact that John Deere only told Laymon that he was going to get in trouble, he because he a black kid in the South. Then the fact a white cop comes overs and says he is drunk, that is not even sensible excuse, he a cop on duty now that he pulls out his sirens and he was driving, how does he not get in trouble for breaking the law not once but twice. It’s sad that this a norm, a cop can shoot a black person and get away with only a slap on the wrist nothing more. Therefore, racism is a problem that shouldn’t happen if this can happen and simply become part of everyday life.
Sixteen months later an incident happens when Laymon, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend’s white friend are walking back to Millsaps College, the college they all attend at the time, from Subway. They are taking a short-cut through the cemetery, when a red Toyota pulls up filled with brothers pulls up. On the brothers gets out and he is holding a gun in his hand, he points it at Laymon and then pulls it back with a goofing smiles and walks back to the car. Laymon after this incident gets a gun, to protect himself. Because he a black writers writing in the Millsaps college newspaper and a few weeks early he wrote an article that angered a lot of white Millaspas students.
A few weeks later on bid day, Laymon and his girlfriend are going to their work, when their out of the dorms an in the parking lot when two fraternities are out getting their new members. They begin screaming at Laymon about his writing, calling him and Laymon and his girlfriend “Nigger” and “Nigger’s bitch”. Laymon goes back to his dorm to get his gun, but ultimately decides not to use it, and grabs a wooden T-ball bat. When he steps out the fraternities’ brothers are yelling names at them, he decides that he doesn’t need a bat to beat them. After the security and Dean break up the mess the frat go back to receiving their pledges and Laymon and his girlfriend go to work.
At their first break at work, Laymon and his girlfriend go the local news station and to get their side of the story.
A few weeks go by and George Harman, the president of the college, meets up with the two fraternity members, Laymon, and his girlfriend and tell them they will be on disciplinary probation for using “racially insensitive language.” And the two fraternities involved get their party privileges taken away for the semester. Kiese Laymon writes “If there was racially insensitive language Shoda and I could have used to make those boys feel we felt, we would have never stepped to them in the first place”
(Paragraph39)
This is wrong on many levels no one should feel that their lives should be at risk for something they write, that a gun should be brought though their chests, or that they need to buy a gun to feel safe. That a frat or sorority should have the right no matter how drunk to make fun of people to pick a fight. Also, they just got their party privileges taken away, so the fraternity just loses most of their income for the semester, the people involved don’t have to attend therapy session for racial insensitivity. It just a waste, they aren’t going to know what they did was wrong, it just making them angry at Laymon for making lose their privilege. It’s wrong on so many levels, it doesn’t show equality when Laymon and his girlfriend words could never match those word that the frat brothers said to them.
The narrative continues on Laymon telling of his life in the south, until he accepted to Oberlin in Chicago. He tells his story to show how the American’s youth is slowly killing each other over their own racism. That they can do it with nothing, more than their own words and actions. In the end, does it really matter racism still lingers on America in and where all just killing ourselves in our own ocean of hatred, prejudice and ignorance.