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Runner Essay

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Submitted By jciepiela
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J Ciepiela 12-19-12

In the Vietnam War 12.5% of the deaths were of African Americans soldiers. Nevertheless during the 1960’s not many people were kind to African Americans. America just needed people for the draft, but not everybody wanted to be part of the draft. In the novel, The Runner by Cynthia Voight Tamer, an African American runner, joins the track team and finds out that it might be more than he bargained for. Tamer is able to overcome the struggles of racism, supporting his family, and the physical challenges of cross country running. By doing this he is able to find his place in the world, which is wherever his family is. When tamer finds his place in the world he becomes nonracial. When tamer and Bullet, the best runner on the team and is white, start to train together they bond. This leads to tamer becoming friends with bullet and not being racist. For example, when bullet and tamer are running at a meet, bullet wins the race and tamer asks “Were you terrific? Don’t bother to tell me, I know you were- I would have liked to have seen it” (288). Because tamer is not racist anymore he will be able to go farther and life and not let people bring him down because he isn’t white. This helps tamer find his place in the world because bullet eventually makes tamer promise to find a way to stay out of the draft. Tamer can now stay home with his family and support them. Bullet and tamer being friends proves that tamer is nonracial. If tamer can’t support his family then he won’t be able to find his place in the world. Tamer has a wife and a baby girl that he needs to support by himself. This is hard for someone who is not African American, and for someone who is they have to deal with racism in order to

get a job. Tamer does this all the time and “[tamer] can hold down two jobs and still get through high school with no trouble and top grades (233).”

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