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The Finkelstein Five

The story is about the life of an African-American Male named Emmanuel and the story interweaves with the event of The Finkelstein Five who were 5 children that were brutally murdered. The main characters experience of identity is having to adjust his identity which he refers to as his “Blackness scale” depending on the people he is surrounded by. For example, when he is on the phone for a job interview he turns his Blackness down to a 1.5, the reader can see he is using formal English and not his usual accent as he mentions the change in the voice he makes. Emmanuel is also taught from a young age to always be conscious about the way he acts and it is one of the most important things he has to think about in his daily life because it affects so much of what he does. It can be seen as a way of survival as his father tells Emmanuel this is for his safety. The social and cultural values and attitudes challenged in this story are the social injustices shown towards the Black community, specifically in America. When the man who murdered The Finkelstein Five was not sentenced to any sort of punishment this is seen as ludicrous. Although this was written in 2018, this is a very relevant topic to what is happening with the BLM movement.

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