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Summary Of Shame By Dick Gregory

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Shame Reaction “Shame” by Dick Gregory, a comedian and social critic, is a short essay on the author’s life growing up as a poor African American youth. The essay includes some of the most embarrassing and impressionable experiences of his childhood due to his meager lifestyle. The author recounts two of these major events at two different periods in his youth. By reading these accounts of life as an underprivileged youth, the reader can relate to Gregory’s feelings of sadness, resentment, and regret because of poverty. Also, the essay shows how money can help fix a situation. Dick Gregory grew up impoverished and with no father. He despised the unfortunate circumstances of his youth and detested being reminded of them. The author relates …show more content…

The memory of the incident remained with Gregory well into his twenties until he got married. The reader truly empathizes with the pain Gregory describes he felt when Helene turned around that day to look at him with tears of pity in her eyes. In the essay, Gregory describes how he loathed being poor so much that he would hide from the charity food trucks that came to his neighborhood. Gregory threw away a new coat that a charitable organization distributed because he did not like being labeled as poor. Moreover, in order to avoid appearing poor in front of Helene, he volunteered to donate fifteen dollars to the organization. The teacher then embarrassed him by telling him that he could not possibly donate that kind of money because he had no father. Gregory also states that he is still ashamed of himself for the time he did not come to the aid of a wino who was beaten because did not have money to pay for a meal he had eaten. Through Gregory’s description, the reader shares the shock and sympathy Gregory felt towards the wino when the diner owner leapt from behind the counter after the wino was unable to pay. The diner owner proceeded to beat the wino with a bottle until Gregory could not stand by any longer and offered to pay for him. The reader feels the author’s regret and sorrow when he describes the rage of the wino towards him for not coming to his aid

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