John Wideman’s grandfather, John French had a presence about himself. You always
knew when he was in the room. The people of Homewood revered him with both fear and
respect. John French was a gambling man who often drank wine and was a bit crazy. He never
had to lay a hand on anyone to prove his point. All he had to do was give someone a squint of an
eye and a long stare and that person was running for the hills. John French’s daughters were
given the same respect around town because of who their daddy was. No one would dare look at
these girls in anything but a Christian way. They would walk down the street and men would
look the other way, just to avoid the possibility that John French would misinterpret their look.
The French girls were always escorted around Homewood and would never be seen around the
town without someone watching after them. The French family was respected in this community
and everyone knew who they were. They were important.
There once was a time when old Elias Brown was sloppy drunk from drinking a jug of
Dago Red. He was cleaning his shotgun in his backyard when mistakenly he pulled the trigger.
It just so happened that the youngest French girl, Geraldine was walking down the street and the
bullet barely grazed her knee. Now, she was not hurt by any means, really just a scrape of the
knee, but Elias Brown was so scared that John French would hurt him because he hurt his
daughter, that he booked it out of town faster than all get out. Nobody in Homewood saw that
poor man for months. It just so happened though that John French wasn’t even bothered by the
situation in the slightest. This is just one example to show how feared John was in Homewood.
Homewood was different back then. It wasn’t the ghetto that it is today. People had jobs
and homes and it was more of a cohesive community. People had a better sense of community
and it was a place where people felt comfortable. The shops were bustling and the place was
alive and thriving. Of course though, Wideman points out that things in the neighborhood started
going south when white people stopped stocking up local stores and basically the town just
became rundown and ghetto looking. Wideman nonchalantly hints that the oppression by the
white folks caused the disintegration of this once thriving neighborhood. By showing the
comparison of the two eras, it verifies the prejudices that Wideman’s mom and brother had for
white people. It shows their point of view and why they looked at white people in such a bad
light. They blamed them for all the shortcomings that incurred from the collapse of a once lovely
neighborhood. I think that Wideman was brilliant in adding this little story to his book because it
really makes the reader more empathetic to the racism that happened in this community.
I believe that the retelling of this story in Wideman’s “Our Time” was a way to show the
reader various relationships and the true dynamics of his family. It isn’t like Robby came from a
bad family. He actually came from good folks. Robby’s story involves the “ghetto” version of
Homewood. John French’s story shows the “community” version of Homewood. The telling of
John French’s stories allows the reader to see the difference in the two eras of this particular
community. The telling of this story also shows the reader that Robby’s family was once
respected and regarded as important. I think this is important to show the reader this because it
presents a more rounded and complete picture of the type of family that Robby and John grew up
in.
I believe that there is strong connection between community, family and personal
identity. We identify ourselves with what type of family we grew up in. Our families are at the
center of our lives for the first eighteen years of our lives, so this sense of family becomes
imbedded into our personal identity. We are molded by our parents, grandparents and brothers
and sisters. Community is also tied into the equation because we associate who we are with the
environment that surrounds us every day. For instance, Robby surrounded himself with people
that were not the most morally conscious individuals and soon this environment took its toll on
Robby’s personal identity. He became part of the ghetto in which he lived in. John on the other
hand did not allow the effects of such an environment to change his essence. Rather, he created
a good and respectable life for himself. His personal identity was formed through his community
and family as well as Robby’s, the difference is that he just took those experiences and made a
positive outcome. Robby took his community and family experiences and produced a negative
outcome in his personal identity.
Overall, personal identity is a compilation so many complex things and it is very hard to
pinpoint exactly how one’s identity is formed. There is the controversy over nature vs. nurture.
Personally, I believe that one’s makeup is a combination of both. You can’t just say one is more
important than the other. For example, John Wideman was definitely a product of his
environment. He took everything bad that he grew up with and made a good life for himself.
This aspect involves the nurture principle. On the other hand, John had it in his DNA to be a
black male. This is the nature principle. The combination of these two things helped in the
shaping of John Wideman’s personal identity. Throughout the reading, Wideman associates
himself with different groups of people. By explaining to the reader the various groups that he
associates himself with, he is attempting to show the reader what type of person he is. For some
reason, Wideman feels it necessary to write about such because this is how he identifies himself.
Works Cited:
Bartholomae, David, and Tony Petrosky. "Our Time." Ways of Reading: An Anthology for
Writers. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999. Print.