“And Love Them?” is a short story was published in 2000 by Thomas Glave, a black author and activist from the Bronx. The story is an inner discussion with the thoughts from a white woman’s perspective. The story her thoughts tell is her perception of black people. She her thoughts has a constant battle with “them”, black people, throughout the course of the story.
Glave writes this story to make the reader feel as though they are in the narrators head. Through this the technique the reader is forced to have the lens of the narrator and for each reader they can debate the narrators thoughts. Throughout the story she allows her to pitty her self in comparison to black people. For example, when she says, “They’re not the only ones who have problems and all the rest of us are just living the high life. Am I living the high life? Do I have to pay taxes? Do I have to ride the subway every day and smell the vomit and the piss stink with everybody else, or what?”(103). She is trying to give her self the opportunity to make it seem like she is fighting the same battles say “they’re”, black people. However, she is just listing off things everyone needs to do anyways that is irrelevant to skin color.
This makes me wonder when I try to compare my struggles to others if they are valid or not. Sometimes I can think the world is unfair but I need to realize that that someone might have it worse for an uncontrollable reason and I should not compare.