The Other Wes Moore: Exploring The Elements that Define Us

Wes Moore, the author of the book called 'The Other Wes Moore,' describes the story of himself and another person named Wes Moore born in a somewhat similar circumstances in Baltimore. However, where the author Moore himself grew up to do great things, “the other” Wes Moore in jail will spend his remaining life in prison every day on charges of murdering Sergeant Bruce Prothero. After learning about the other Wes Moore, Moore, the author begins a letter with him and eventually visits him in jail. They share many of their experiences about each other’s childhood, environment they had, and the people they are involved with. The two work together to create a book about their life, gaining insight into the nature of fate and encouraging young people.

The book 'The Other Wes Moore' claims how important the family, their environment, and the people involved around are in their development. The book charts the author Wes Moore's development, from reckless children to trained eminent teenagers and adults. He explains how our destiny is determined by the external environment throughout this book. Moore admits that there is not much difference in distinguishing his destiny from the other Moore's, but says that the most important factor was the support of his mother, Joy, along with other families and communities. His father Wesley appears very short in this book, but the impact on Moore is very large. Westley graduated from Bard College and hosted his own public program as a radio journalist. Moore states “I tried to copy his walk, his expression. I was his main man. He was my protector”. He had a very positive influence on Moore, demonstrating fair, responsible and compassionate masculinity. His words also show that kind words are a better form of discipline than harsh punishment. However, his father passed away unfortunately. He also points out “I thought about my father and the name he chose for me”. Moore suggests that his father formed a person who would still be Moore even if he did not exist physically in his life.

After Westly's death, Moore’s mom, Joy feels strongly responsible for protecting her children because of her husband's absence. She does three things to support his family and sends Moore to Riverdale, a private school like the university with John F. Kennedy. Moore points, “My mother saw Riverdale as a haven, a place where I could escape my neighborhood and open my horizons”. Joy believes that when registering Moore in Riverdale, this will help him widen the 'horizon' and make a better life. She hopes this will allow Moore to escape his neighbor while pursuing a brighter future. At this point, she shows that she is trying to provide a better environment for her son. Moore also claims, “Wes, you are not going anywhere until you give this place a try. I am so proud of you, and your father is proud of you, and we just want you to give this a shot. Too many people have sacrificed in order for you to be there”. This quote reveals Joy's approach to Moore. She says she and her husband think Moore is a proud son, supporting and encouraging him. She tried to reinforce her son to be responsible, notifying that others would sacrifice for him.

On the other hand, the prisoner Wes's mother Mary is undoubtedly wise, altruistic and hard working. The author demonstrates, “Since leaving high school years prior, Bernard hadn’t found a steady job. He spent most of his time searching for himself at the bottoms of liquor bottles”. His father Bernard, on the other hand, ruined his life with irresponsibility, destructiveness and addiction. These two oppositions exist on Wes's path. Wes feels that Mary needs to be protected because his father has never come to help her. Although his half brother Tony and his mom Mary make efforts to keep Wes on a responsible path, he ultimately ends up following his older brother into the drug game. The author states “And the drug game was everywhere, with a gun handle protruding from the top of every tenth teenager's waistline. People who lived in Murphy Homes felt like prisoners, kept in check by roving bands of gun-strapped kids and a nightmare army of drug fiends. This was where Tony chose to spend his days”. Tony spent most of his time at Murphy Homes Projects and has been dealing with drugs since the age of ten. At the age of 14, he is a 'certified gangster' with a fierce reputation. Tony constantly tries to persuade Wes to pursue another path, but he admits that there is no way for him to give up and make the same decision as himself. Wes ignored Tony's words and admired his brother for his actions. Regardless of Tony's words, Wes is impressed by Tony's tough position and tries to act like his older brother without following the advice. The author Moore has good friends around him.

Moore's best friend, Justin, is one of the only black kids in Riverdale. The author says, “I had forgotten how to act naturally, thinking way too much in each situation and getting tangled in the contradictions between my two worlds. My confidence took a hit. Unlike Justin, whose maturity helped him handle this transition much better than I did, I began to let my grades slip”. Justin is a great student and was warned by the Riverdale faculty to avoid Moore, but Justin ignores this advice. Justin has a special level of difficulty in his life. His mother died of Hodgkin's lymphoma when he was in high school, and in college, Justin develops a rare form of cancer at the same time his father dies from a home fire. Nevertheless, Justin recovered and had a successful career in education. Moore must have been challenged by his friends to see him live hard in difficult circumstances. Another person who influenced him through book would be Captain Hill. He says, “With the support of people like Cadet Captain Hill and the others in my chain of command and on faculty, I’d actually started to enjoy military school”.

Captain Hill is a young black man with an exceptional level of differentiation at Valley Forge. He became one of Moore's mentors and was one of the groomsmen at Moore's wedding a few years later. Two more people to be announced as good friends are Zinzi and Simo. Both boys and Moore met when Moore visited South Africa and got closer. The author states “My friendship with Zinzi and Simo had also grown significantly”. Moore experienced other cultures and gained enlightenment through both of his friends. As such, Moore had many great people who influenced him, and they were clearly the ones who helped him to be better. The other Wes in the prison also had friends who influenced him in good and bad ways. When Wes moves to Northwood, Woody becomes friends with Wes. “They ignored Woody until he shouted out, “If y’all don’t let him go, I’m gonna have to kill somebody!” Moments later, Woody was in handcuffs too”, according to author. As a child, Woody has a positive effect on Wes and prevents him from pulling the knife of a neighboring boy. Woody is the only group of Wes's friends to graduate from high school, but he still spends time in prison after this point.In the end, he decides to leave the street by getting a job as a truck driver. Cheryl is a Wes’s girlfriend. A little older than Wes, she is a heroin addict and does not attempt to hide drug use from him.

The author writes, “Just a month ago, he’d noticed he was missing money and lectured Cheryl: Stop bringing your friends into my house if they’re going to be stealing my stuff!”. Her appearance does not help Wes as a spouse or partner at all, but rather shows a worse influence. Wes thinks his life is frustrating at some point because of looking at her and his two children. He was sick and tired of watching drugs destroying families and community. Levy is a friend of Wes who seeks advice if Wes decides to leave the drug game. The author demonstrates, “He knew the pay would be lower than what he was making on the streets, but the work was steady and honest, and he would have more time to give family without injury, death, or incarceration looming”. Throughout the whole story, Levy is the only friend who escaped from where drag games present. Wes seems to lack the people who will lead him out of harmful decisions. The author Moore's environment are not in fact perfect or good. He lost his father as a child, and his mother had to live with the obsession with protecting her children. Perhaps that's why she sent Moore to Valley Forge. She would have thought that the environment there would be better for her son.

According to the author, “That’s when I started to understand that I was in a different environment. Not simply because I was in the middle of Pennsylvania instead of Bronx or Baltimore. It was a different psychological environment, where my normal expectations were inverted, where leadership was honored and class clowns were ostracized”. It was a wise choice of his mother Joy to send him to a military school. There he realizes how good his environment is. Not only the environment itself, but also the esteemed people and colleagues that exist there, he learns and feels a lot. Eventually there he had the opportunity to meet Captain Hill, the manto of his life. As such, environmental factors provide relationships not only with the environment itself, but with the people in it. The environment in which Tony and Wes faced was perhaps a fate that had to be accepted by them. The author describes, “Wes noticed one of his boys leaning out of a window along with dozens of other people, who were now curiously watching. The boy was one of Wes’s partners in his drug operation, and when he saw Wes standing in the night air, face bloodied, with the gun in hand, he had his cue to join the fight”. In this situation, it is clear that Wes could not pretend not to know. The place where he lived was a scene of drug trafficking that was so full of dangerous elements. It was Wes himself who decided to sell the drug, but he pushed him into such an environment because his older brother started the drug earlier than that. Trying to get out of the environment would not be easy for Wes.

The author states, “In Baltimore in 1991, 11.7 percent of girls between the ages of fifteen and nineteen had given birth. More than one out of ten. He also didn't feel burdened by the thought that early parenthood would wreck his future plans – because he didn't really have any future plans. And he wasn’t overly stressed about the responsibilities of fatherhood – he didn’t even know what that meant. But in some unspoken way, he did sense that he was crossing a point of no return, that things were about to get complicated in a way he was unequipped to handle.” The community where Wes lived was where one in ten teenagers had a baby. It has many meanings, indicating that it is a poorly educational environment, where poverty exists, and where parental involvement is poor. Wes was also a boy with all of these environmental factors, and it gave him the experience of being a father at teenager. Moore describes that the story of himself and Wes's life will be of interest not only to the two, but also to a larger audience who are interested in how people shape their destiny and how their fate is formed by people and environments. Moore states “The chilling truth is that his life could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his”. They lived in the same place, Baltimore, but live in different directions. However, if they had other family members, friends and surroundings at that time, their lives might have really changed each other. Had he and his family not immigrated, if he had lived in a different environment, his life would have changed as well. As such, the impact of their family, friends and the environment on people is very large and important.