Little Things Are Big Response

I think that, by not helping the woman and her children, Jesus Colon just put a label on black Puerto Ricans as untrustworthy, that they didn't stick to their word of honor, and an overall, enforced racism. He also presumed that every white person was prejudiced, even when they weren't. This labeling meant he thought that the woman would shout at him, or scream, or think he was trying to get close, so instead of helping the woman, he ran off. He regrets this decision, because the woman might not have been prejudiced, and might have said yes to his helping her. I think he made the wrong choice, because it couldn't have hurt to ask, and even if she did refuse, or scream, the only thing that would have been hurt was his feelings, and he would probably have forgotten it the next day. If Colon was a white American, my answer would have been the same, because it would have been even more likely that the woman would have accepted. The real victim of this story was the black society, because Colon's labeling meant that all the white people would label all the black people as untrustworthy. But now Colon has made amends for the incident by writing the short story. I think he hopes, somewhere, the white woman is reading it.