Compare and Contrast - in the Kitchen and Who Shot Johnny

In the Kitchen and Who Shot Johnny

The purpose of both of the essay was to inform the reader about how the author feels that African American's are viewed and expected how to behave due to race. The essay show how they live and try to change themselves to conform to how they believe they must look or how the stereotype has portrayed them to behave unjustly.

In the Kitchen the author expresses how hard he and has family has always tried to have straight hair so that they would fit in in society, while in Who Shot Johnny the gangster men do not fit into the confines of normal functioning society nor do they wish to. In both essays the author and their family are simply trying to be respectable families and fit in with society, however in both they bring up points that they believe prevent them from fitting in. In the first the author feels he cannot fit in unless he has straight hair and in the second the author and her family feels they cannot fit in because of the gangsters that give them a bad image. In both essays the characters are expected to change natural aspects about themselves to be accepted, In the Kitchen they are expected to change their natural outward appearance and in Who Shot Johnny Johnny was expected to not be waving at people he did not know and was shot for it.

In the essay In the Kitchen the idea that the African Americans wanted straight hair was well developed. He provided the names of multiple hair products, celebrities and different hair straightening procedures to prove his point. In Who Shot Johnny the author expressed the idea that the world is unfair and it is caused by the kind of men who shot Johnny. He was shot for being happy and friendly and her family is thought of badly because they live in the same area as the gangsters, whom they are nothing like.