Shame Dick Gregory Summary

Why do people hate when others feel sorry for them? We as humans have created this idea that if someone pities us, we are less of a person than they are. This is what leads people to keep the things they are ashamed of about themselves a secret. In the short story “Shame”, Dick Gregory tells a story about being pitied by his classmates and his teacher when he was younger. He was embarrassed for something that he could not control and it affected him for most of his life. Gregory did his best to keep his poverty a secret so that his fellow classmates and friends wouldn’t know that he was different than they were. This is what is called secret shame, it is where people try to keep something they are ashamed of a secret so that they don’t have …show more content…
This is what makes that person more aware of their insecurities, and will constantly make them feel inferior to their peers. This is not fair because even when they are given assistance to overcome one of the obstacles in life they are dealing with, the person that is giving the assistance is just doing it for praise from their peers. Often time’s people find themselves wanting to help others, but are they doing it because they actually want to help them or because they want others to think that they are kind and caring? When people do good deeds such as giving some of their groceries to a panhandler on the side of the road, they don’t just give them the food and move on with the rest of their day. They feel the need to go on social media and tell the world about the kind gesture they did today. This is because they don’t do those kind deeds because they want to help others, they do them because they want others to know that they are giving and that they care about everyone. If people would just do those deeds and know in their hearts that what they did was right then those kind gestures would mean so much