What's In A Name Henry Louis Gates Jr Summary

In the essay “What’s in a name?,” by Henry Louis Gates Jr, he discusses how his father experienced discrimination when Henry was a child, how Americans referred to all the African Americans as “George”, although, Gates family was stable economic wise they still had to deal with this type of discrimination. This took place in Piedmont, West Virginia, where Gates lived with his parents and brother. Henry Louis Gates Jr, was a young boy at that time and didn’t understand why Mr. Wilson called his father “George”; but after this incident when Gates asked his father if Mr. Wilson didn’t know his name and asked why he called his father “George”. Gates mother referred to it as it’s “one of those things” that they had to deal with. Henry Louis Gates
felt it was more offensive to call African Americans “George” than other slurs they would use. Gates also, mentions “I never again looked Mr. Wilson in the eye” he was just a boy but, he might had felt offended when they didn’t give his father the respect to call him by his name.