106
" Instead, I asked a question: 'Do you think we're all just products of our environments?' His smile dissolved into a smirk, with he left side of his face resting at ease.
'I think so, or maybe products of our expectations.'
'Others' expectations of us or our expectations for ourselves?'
'I mean others' expectations that you take on as your own.'
I realized then how difficult it is to separate the two. The expectations that others face on us help us form our expectations of ourselves.
'We will do what others expect of us,' Wes said. 'If they expect us to graduate, we will graduate. If they expect us to get a job, we will get a job. If they expect us to go to jail, then that's where we will end up too. At some point you lose control.'
I sympathized with him, but I recoiled from his ability to shed responsibility seamlessly and drape it at the feet of others.
'True, but it's easy to lose control when you were never looking for it in the first place. "
― Wes Moore , The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
116
" Freddie Gray and so many other boys like him grew up in the type of poverty that permeates everything: how you are educated, the water you drink, the home you live in, the air you breathe, the school you spend most of your day in, the way you are policed, whether or not you will die in the same poverty you were born in. It was that poverty that raised the probability that Freddie would be exactly where he was on April 12, 2015, and then again on April 27, 2015. "
― Wes Moore , Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City