Response to Question 1 Day 5 Tony Jackson "Too Many Faces"

I believe that everyone no matter color, race, gender, sexuality, or style should have to deal with being put into a box. I like to dress the way I want I like skinny jeans and cardigans and fitted clothes but in my neighborhood the style is baggy, loose fit, dark clothes that make you look like a gangster. I work for the cook county green program, it’s an organization that helps clean up the community and plants flower beds and gardens along the bike path that runs through Maywood. It was Monday and we were going on a trip to visit another garden somewhere in Chicago. I didn’t know the area that they were talking about but my co workers did and when they found out where we were going they made a big deal about what would happen to me if I went to this certain place with the clothes I had on. They said that I would be called gay or that I would get made fun of. They went as far as saying that I would get beat up. So everyone wanted me to dress more like them, more “ghetto”. I didn’t like that I compromised who I am.
Something that mark said in the book really connects to this situation “having to put on a mask all the time. What does it feel like? How Does it make you as if you lose track of who you really are” (51) the boys in the book have to pretend all the time that they are something that they’re not they have to put on different faces for different things that go on in the jail. My coworkers wanted me to be something I’m not so I told them that I couldn’t do that because who I am is who I am I don’t have to be anybody else but me. They all laughed and tried to warn me again but I stood by it. The next day I dressed in what I wanted to dress in and to their surprise people were saying they like how I dress so because I defended myself and didn’t change I was looked at as an individual.