Comparisons of Two Short Stories Research Assignment

Comparisons of Two Short Stories
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Introduction
Of My Friend Hector and My Achilles’ Heel is a short story by Michael T. Kaufman, a New York Times reporter. The story is about Kaufman narrating his story as a bright boy to his being a reporter and his relation with his best friend called Hector. Black Men and Public Spaces is also a short story. This one is by Brent Staples, a black reporter. In his short story, he recounts his experiences as a black reporter. This essay is a comparison of the two short stories to show how lack of awareness of cultural differences on the assumption by one cultural group that another is inferior results in interactions that are painful power struggles.
Summary
In the Of My Fried Hector and My Achilles’ Heel story, Kaufman begins his narrative as a 7-year-old boy living in New York City in 1945. A Puerto Rican family moved in their apartment building and Kaufman befriended the son from that family called Hector. Over the years, Kaufman realized he was a bright student and Hector was not. This early age realization for Kaufman became the basis upon which he saw his friend which is a common characteristic of students who see themselves as very bright in comparison to others (Freeman, 2013). This went on for years and strained his relationship with Hector. When much later he saw Hector wearing a knitted watch cap, he thought his friend’s life did not turn out well. When he noticed his friend is actually a famous actor, he realized his assumptions about him had clouded his judgement and affected his interactions with Hector. In Black Men in Public Spaces, Staples talks about perceptions of white people on black people (Stieber, 2017). He does this through narrating his story. He narrates how white women used run off and other people lock their car doors when they saw him. He also recounts his childhood life where violence was common. Staples also recounts what other journalists like him went through.
Comparison
Kaufman and Staples are both reporters, they are both writing about their lives and the assumptions that defined them: Kaufman assumed his friend Hector is not successful in life because he was not a bright student as him, Staples, as a black man, dealt with assumptions about his race by white people who are the dominant race. Both writers are writing as members of a special group of people in society who are the minority: Kaufman is very smart and Staples is black. Belonging to such groups creates power struggles between members of these groups and their majority counterparts. For Kaufman, this is the rest of the population which has average intelligence and for Staples, it is the white people. The difference between Kaufman’s and Staples’ is that Kaufman’s group is the one suffering from lack of awareness as it considers the rest of society as inferior and Staples&rsqu...