Grasser 1

Jake Grasser
Ms Mckiddy
ERWC 12
6 May 2016
Scholarship Essay: Common Assessment Thematic Response (Pre IB English 9)
In an excerpt from Martin Hamers, The Mountain, and Countee Cullens poem, Incident,
there is a common theme among the two pieces of work, which displays the impact racial
discrimination can have on someone, even young children whom we feel may not be able to
comprehend such a thing. They are impressionable and such wrongful, useless displays of race
driven scrutinization will bring about a greater impact on them then one may think when
ignorantly slandering their racist opinions and making hasty judgements of people, with
absolutely no regards to their true character.
The Mountain portrays 2 young ethnic boys as they venture through a city in a part of
town that seems to be far higher class than the side of town that theye from. They spend the
good majority of their day exploring this new, glorious place and taking in all of the unfamiliar
sights of the city. As the day draws to an end they make their way to public transit as they board
the train, finding themselves packed like sardines amongst a rather unfamiliar crowd. When to
their dismay a frantic woman places false victimization upon the young boys who to her seemed
to be the most logical explanation as to where her wallet had gone. Without further consideration
the woman banters the young boys as her mind has been so accustomed to an idea supporting the
somewhat false stereotype surrounding the boy profiles. She made the accusation with no
accumulated evidence to the whereabouts of her bag other than the fact that these two lower
class, non-white young men happened to be standing near her during her foolish misplacement of

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her wallet in her bag. The woman completely disregarded the possible humiliation that her
heinous attack upon these innocent boys could cause. The younger of the two boys found himself
scared, humiliated, and covered in his own urine after being accused by the woman who felt no
sense of remorse as she fled the scene as soon as the train reached her stop, probably without
even considering apologizing to the boys, because to her there were nothing more than a couple
of kids of color whom she wanted nothing to do with. When the two boys returned home it was
clear to the older of the boys that something was bothering the other. It was what happened on
the train. The younger boy was self aware of the fact that the reason the woman singled the two
of them out was because of how they appeared. Now he was not self aware of anything is regards
to race, but the woman most certainly was. However, the boy was very aware that the reason had
relationship to how they appeared. He was ashamed of who he was because he was less fortunate
than her, as he was from a far poorer lifestyle. He was ashamed of where he came from, which
was absolutely not who he was. It had no direct reflection of the boys character, his honesty, his
morality. But the woman allowed his appearance to define who the boys were. She allowed it to
influence her perception, because after all what other reason was there to place the blame on the
boys, other than their difference in appearance from herself.
Just as in The Mountain, an innocent young girl is victim to racism as she is walking the
streets of Baltimore attempting to make some sort of positive connection with a stranger she
passes on the street in Countee Cullens poem Incident. This particular incident came to be the
thing that seemed to stick with her after all of her time in Baltimore. As with the boys in The
Mountain this girl is minding her own business in every way except for a pleasant smile as she
passes a man glaring her way. The man, knowing nothing about the young girl, who she is, where
shes from, what shes like, her name, and literally nothing about her other than the color of her

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skin feels that he has some sort of obligation to alert the girl of his distaste for her race. He is
blind to the possibility of pureness in such a young girl's heart and by exposing her to such an
awful thing as racism, poisoning her. Racism is something that even in todays society is
introduced and sadly even inherited at a very young age. The minds of most children are
developed to recognize individuals by color rather than as human beings. And by this man
calling her a, nigger, she is already going to begin to view herself as different from whatever
other race she comes to encounter. She will learn to identify by skin color rather than by
character. This is something that hold precedent more often than we would all like to admit. Not
always as far as blurting racial slurs to strangers on the streets, but something as simple as seeing
someone and allowing race to be your first defining characteristic of them when you first see
them, even in the case of seeing someone of your own race. The girl goes on to mention that for
the all of the time she spent in Baltimore from May until December, this is what she came to
remember. Not all that shed seen. Not the beauty of a new place the young optimistic girl was
seeing before her, but the encounter she had with a man who probably wouldnt even remember
the situation if you asked him about it, seeing that his racism is likely second nature.
In conclusion, the themed shared by The Mountains and Incident is that discrimination
based on appearance is inexcusable, though it can appear as second nature by inheritance from
whomever, as it can poison the young minds of this world, causing them to view everyone as
different based on this appearance, social class, wealth, and even race. All of these things do not
define our character and who we truly are. They are simply a label that society has given us and
by ignorantly exposing the youth of this glorious planet to such labels, they will learn to view
individuals as those labels, rather than as the beautiful unique human beings that we are.