Daniel Hicks's Childhood

Daniel Hicks was born in 1965 in the small, rural town of Humboldt, Tennessee. Hicks described Humboldt as a blue collar town, where everyone knew each other and knew each other’s business. While Hicks lived in Humboldt, the population of the town was equally split between whites and blacks, and Hicks went to school at the beginning of the racial integration process. Hicks was born into a “dirt poor” family with four other siblings. At the age of 12, Hicks and his siblings were put into foster care when his mother and stepfather were seen as unfit to raise children, and from there was adopted by Lamar Hicks and his wife. At the age of 18, he joined and traveled with the military for four years. During that time, he met his wife, who is Jewish …show more content…
Hicks was in 5th grade when he made it known to his parents that he was “head over heels” for Daphne Hubber (a black girl), and that he thought that this was the girl he was going to marry. His parents told him that she was off limits. He complied, and dropped his affection for Hubber. He then developed a new crush on another black girl, Tammy Porter. When he brought it up to his parents, they once again said he could not date her, but made it clear this time that it was because she was black. It was then that it became evident to Hicks that it was not just Hubber that his parents would not allow him to date, but it was all black girls that were off limits for his affection. This incident is an example of deviance. Deviance is the recognized violation of social norms (Jansen, Sep. 26, 2016). In the reading, “The Saints and The Roughnecks” by William J. Chambliss (1973), two groups of boys both participated in deviant behavior. If their deviance was caught, they would face repercussions like punishment from school and/or being labeled a certain way that in turn had consequences in their futures. In Hicks’s case, his deviation from the social norms of his environment resulted in him being socialized into the same racial viewpoint and behaviors of his parents and his community. Hicks deviated from the social norm of the separation …show more content…
Hicks was used to fighting racial battles in Humboldt. If there were a fight between whites and blacks in his school or in his community, he felt obligated to fight on the white side. This background led Hicks into a fight with a black soldier when he was in the military for three months. During formation, a black soldier behind Hicks continually stepped on Hicks’s heels. Hicks warned him to stop; however, the black soldier did not and continued to step on Hicks’s heels. Hicks assumed the black soldier was doing this to him because he was white. Hicks turned around and punched the black soldier with enough force to knock the black soldier to the ground. Hicks faced serious punishment for this misdemeanor, including the requirement that Hicks and the black soldier had to be continuously together. “He made us bunk together, tent together, room together, made us do everything together. He said, ‘When you boys get done here, you guys are going to be the best of friends,’” Hicks said. Through this arrangement, Hicks was able to get to know the black soldier intimately, and learned that what he initially thought was a racial dispute was actually just because the black soldier was clumsy. In addition, it was Hicks’s first time getting to “really” know a black person. Hicks said that the black soldier helped