Little Failures: Who's the audience that Gary is writing for?

        This question was brought up in class and I think its an important question for actually understanding the book. Yes, Gary Shteyngart brings up events in his life in which I can relate to but I feel that the real audience in which Gary is writing for are the middle class, hopeful individuals/families that have come to America from somewhere else. Gary makes out that the transition of leaving where you come from and adapting to the new Western culture while still hanging on to your roots is beyond difficult. He also indicates that actually obtaining the "American dream"  is much harder than spoken about and the obstacles leading up to it are very stressful. I also feel that this book wasn't written for todays society. I feel that the generation before mine can relate to this book more than I can.  

The Emergence Of Modern Colorism In The Americas

        Reading this excerpt made me question who gave permission to the white men to do what they did. The white men ordered slaves, took advantage of the illiterate people, raped woman, and then took no responsibility for the children. America is the land of freedom, yet whoever came here was never free. This dates back to when Christopher Columbus and his people came in and enslaved the Indians who had been here way longer. Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers who wrote the declaration of independence, was a slave owner himself.
         Religion plays a big role in this. The white men felt that it was there religious duty to "tame the savage people and bring them civilization."[pg3,4] Being Christian, this kind of annoyed me because this act goes against the religion and gives it a bad reputation. A lot of Atheist today are Atheist because of history. They see how "religion" influenced societies to do bad things and they don't agree. If a slave came over as a Christian, they would be a slave for seven years and were given their independence but if a slave wasn't religious, they were enslaved for life. Its just sad because this is how America really used to be.