The Other Side Of The River, By Alex Kotlowitz

The different Side Of The River, By Alex KotlowitzThe book, The Other Side of the River, by Alex Kotlowitz, investigates the relationship surrounded by deuce Michigan cities, as puff up as the death of Eric McGinnis. The twain towns, St. Joseph and Benton lactate, are called the twin cities, though they are anything unless. For one, St. Joseph is predominantly white, while the volume of the population in Benton Harbor is African American. Throughout the novel Kotlowitz questions how large number are affected by their environment. When interviewed more or less his book he said, your perspectiveall depends on which aspect of the river you live on. This statement is undoubtedly the backdrop for Kotlowitzs book. Erics death is dependable one of the some counsels in which disagreement between the deuce cities took place. Another death that sparked a commotion between the two cities, and perhaps more important, between the two races, was the death of Norris Maben.January 18, 1990, a year in advance Erics death was when Norris Maben was killed. Maben was childs play by Marv Fiedler, a white cop. Fiedler plan Maben was the mirthful he had been looking for and when it appeared that Maben was about to pull out a gun, Fiedler shot him. There was a logical explanation behind the shooting, but to the normal this was undecomposed an unjust act of violence. To make matters worse, Maben was unarmed. The citizens of Benton Harbor saw this as a racial attack. Right before Fiedlers trial was when Erics dead ashes was found floating in the St. Joseph river. Immediately the re arraynts of Benton Harbor thought he was murdered by a white citizen of St. Joseph. On the other hand, the citizens of St. Joseph thought it was possibly a suicide, or they didnt really care. One St. Joseph re typefacent commented , That coon came on the wrong side of the bridge. He Should have stayed on his side of the river. Erics untimely death stirred up stagnant feelings of the Ma ben shooting, as well as forming new a feud between the two cities.Residents of some(prenominal) St. Joseph and Benton Harbor grew up learning that the people on the other side of the river are corrupt. Chris Adams, the owner of a popular teen hangout, told Kotlowitz during an interview, You get down up around here learning that bad things happen in Benton Harbor. You grow up afraid to go across the river. This fright of venturing to the other side of the river was true for adults as well as teens. The author, Alex Kotlowitz, recounts how black teens asked cops for rides back to Benton Harbor because they were so afraid of being left alone in St. Joseph, but more importantly, they were afraid of the whites. Situations such as these bring into question whether this fear of the opposite race is a learned behavior as suggested by Chris Adams, or if prejudice is a behavior you are born with.This thought process of behaviors being learned, or being born with the behaviors, is refer red to Nature vs. Nurture. Nature refers to ones inherent aptitude and the concept that a persons behaviors can be traced back to their genetic makeup. On the contrary, nurture refers to the theory that people act a certain substance because they learned so from their parents or peers. Growing knowledge of the human genome is aid scientists form theories in which both sides are partly right, but as of now the subject is still in debate amongst sociologists.In my opinion, I feel that a persons behaviors are learned by observing their parents or their peers. The characters from The Other Side of the River grew up learning that the other race is middle-level and the other town across the river is corrupt. There are a hardly a(prenominal) people, who are white, and live on the Benton Harbor side of the river. These people very much interact with both races. It is people like this who learned growing up that neither race is superior. Furthermore, there are also a a few(prenominal) characters, such as Ruth McGinnis, who are sociable and cordial with whites, and many other inhabitants of St. Joseph.As I began to read this book I anticipate a story about the death of Eric McGinnis, but as I read more and more I realized that this book was about much more. It told the underlying story of the two Michigan towns, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. It also told of unhomogeneous other controversies that helped me, as the reader, to identify why the townspeople felt the way they did about Erics death. This book also left me feeling unsettled. Living in a country that takes such pride in its diversity, it makes me wonder how two towns such as Benton Harbor and St. Joseph can exist. There are hundreds of towns just like these two, and if people exit cease to be ignorant than they will be able to see each other for who they are, and no seven-day define each other according to their race.