Wind whips through my hair and adrenaline pounds through my veins. As I fly around the track, blurs of trees and faces whirl before my face. Sprinting to the finish line, I see ahead the ribbon and know this race is mine. I breeze through the finish line, willing my legs to stop running I slam into the fence breathing heavy. Suddenly, I see something that takes me breath away... In "Raymond's Run," Toni Cade Bambera created Squeaky, a girl with great running skills who doesn’t have the best skills in not judging people by their cover. The author used Squeaky to teach us about not truly seeing people.
When Squeaky gets caught up in believing that Raymond will never be good at anything she has a hard time coping with the fact that he can accomplish goals in his own way. It hurts Squeaky to hear people teasing Raymond, but she knows that most of the things that people say are true. She believes that Raymond will probably never have a job, will never have the ability to live life like she will and will never have one thing that he's good at. To prove this point even further when her brother started to run, it wasn't the way anyone who doesn't have disabilities would. But it made her think that he could be a great runner… if someone would help him. When Squeaky began thinking what all her brother won't be able to do, "I hear Raymond yanking at the fence to call me and I wave to shush him, but he keeps rattling the fence like a gorilla in a cage like in them gorilla movies, but then like a dancer or something he starts climbing up nice and easy but very fast. And it occurs to me, watching how smoothly he climbs hand over hand and remembering how he looked running with his arms down to his side and with the wind pulling his mouth back and his teeth showing and all, it occurred to me that Raymond would make a very fine runner." It occurred to her that even though her brother has disabilities, that doesn’t prevent him from being able to be good at anything. Making her think that if she hasn't seen Raymond for who he truly is then maybe she hasn’t seen other people as well.
Another person that Squeaky did not truly see was Gretchen, she believed that Gretchen was too arrogant and selfish; but she never actually said anything during the story. After the race, Gretchen nodded and smiled at Squeaky as a sign of possible respect. It makes her think that maybe she has not been seeing people the way that they truly are. Such as her judgments of Gretchen and Raymond after all these things happen she finally sees that maybe everyone is truly different than what she thought or people had said before she got to know who they really where. She realizes all from one smile that... "It’s about as real a smile as girls can do for each other, considering we don’t practice real smiling every day, you know, cause maybe we too busy being flowers or fairies or strawberries instead of something honest and worthy of respect . . . you know . . . like being people." By Gretchen's smile and respect, it brought Squeaky to a different understanding of what people are truly like before you judge them. Before Squeaky had decided that everyone is different she thought of things more along the line of, "I am the best, no one can beat me." and "So what if that girl doesn't like me; I'll say something rude back." But now she see's that if you don't actually get to know the real person, your image of them is totally different.
Squeaky's perceptions of people were very different from how they truly acted or what their personalities were like, when doing so she let the way she perceived people to be differ from their true personas. It was difficult for her to change but through meticulous work, she reprimanded herself to become a better person. After her realization she vowed that she would get to know the person before she made any judgments.
