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Um I think Shelby junior portrays

Chalala as a young girl who is captivated in

an environment where she feels as if the only escape

or the only benefit to.

Um

I wouldn't even say financial security 100%

but just to have some type of money is to sell her body to men

that live within her environment.

Um I think

Selby definitely inserts his character

at a right time within her book, sorry, within his book,

even though it seems like the book is all over the place.

I do think there is a sense of order when it comes to these characters.

Um

And I think it also shows the realism within this environment as well.

Some people may find the um story uncomfortable, but I just think it's real.

Uh things like this do happen in real life. There are women out here who,

you know, do prostitute and

do feel as if this is the only way they can

win in life. Um

I think her life turned out the way it did solely because of her,

but I do think there were environmental factors, of course. Um And

you know, not having parents um being young was also another factor in her life. Um,

usually when you're young, you're young minded.

So a lot of times you have no guidance or

you, you know, you have no guidance and like I said, she didn't have any parents.

So that just made it even worse for her.

She had no friends, no one to run to no advice to take from anyone. So,

you know, it definitely was harder for her.

And I can see that I'm not taking away from her struggle.

But I think one thing that

she did was feed into her struggle. I don't think you should feed into a struggle.

I think you should um

try to beat your struggle. And I think that's where she

lost in life was

thinking that she had to adhere to her struggle. So

I also understood that there were different viewpoints on whether

she had less control or more control over her life.

And in class, we even compared

uh Georgette to char a

lot.

Um In fact, I kind of disagreed with the comparison.

I don't think Selby wrote these two characters to be compared.

I think he just showed

two different people with two different stories. If that makes sense. I think

in life, a lot of people tend to compare people's struggle, sorry, struggle,

struggles, um their looks, um or how even they are in life

to

um kind of make it better for one person and worse for the other person.

But I think Selby just wants to level head them. I don't think he,

uh, shares both stories to say that one had worse. So one had better.

I just think he just shows the realism with everyone's life and that

our problems are not to be overlooked and not to be compared,

but to just be

brought out and to just be, you know, an awareness. Um

uh to say that I do think that

Chalala

did have less control over her life at a young age.

But I think there was times where she could have had more control. Um

even going back to when the army man had gave her a letter and,

you know, she could have got married, she could have lived her life better.

She could have potentially got out of Brooklyn New York.

She could have found a man who really loved her.

So I think

her choosing her lifestyle over,

um a better one is where

that was on her and that where she could have had more control over her life.

Um

because again, she's in an environment where it feels comfortable to just,

um,

you know,

be you and

I'm not even going to say that was being her because I don't know, you know,

none of us really know Charlie Law.

She's a character that Shelby wrote about. But

I think

it was more comfortable for her to sit in

an environment where she knew where she knew the

in and outs where she knew the man where she knew how much money she would make.

It was just comfortable and it was fast money.

So her having to step out and sacrifice that

not knowing what was coming next was her downfall.

Um, after looking at the interview and sorry, reading the interview,

um Selby responds to her control over her fate.

Um, he definitely puts her fate on her.

He does bring up the letter and how she

just decided not to marry the man, even though obviously,

that might have been the better option for her.

He explains how she was captivated within

her own environment and how she was mentally

captivated within that environment and how she

never saw anything further than that.

And then I wanted to mention how we also read

the review on the book from the New York Times and how he said that um

these were these people like cha

to law

and like Georgette, they were never people who dreamed of anything more.

They were people who dreamed of something that was near sight.

And I did agree with that.

I think people who only dream of things, something that they, sorry,

I'm stuttering, but

I do agree that

the people who do

um only hope for things that are like in touch like they can grab it

aren't people who

are gonna be the most successful in life because

as a human being, you have to have ambitions to work hard and to reach things that

you don't think you'll ever reach. And that sounds crazy. But I think it's real

and

I don't think

Chala ever had ambitions to go further than Brooklyn New York.

I think she just wants to stay in there,

make as much money as she can and

I don't know, live her life, you know, so

it does, um, respond to her control as

she just not caring about it. She didn't care about control. She didn't care about

how she was. Look, she didn't care about her life really. She just cared about

living

if that makes sense. I don't think she cared about her overall life.

She just cared about

the day, the present day. So

I think that was also a good uh point that so we

did introduce and also the New York Times uh reviewer as well.

Um

And he also offers what went wrong for child the law. He tells us that

maybe

it was just a comfortable within her and her not being able to see past herself.

And like again, the note her not

just taking that letter and saying, you know what, I can have a better life,

I can get out of this business.

I can marry, I can love, I can have kids, you know.

So I don't, I just don't think her goal of life was to

fulfill anything

um

past

than what she could see. I don't think it was something that

she wanted to do.

I just think it was something that she was just like, oh, it's too good to be true.

And then again, it's like, how can you blame her?

Someone who comes from a poor, poor environment

where there's crime violence.

Um,

like I said, she had no parents, she had no support system. So

it was like,

so, um, yeah, just how can you blame her for them? Um How she turned out

because no one's ever really been there for her. No one's showed her how to do things.

No one's been her guidance, no one's been her parent.

So it's just like she's had, she's had to navigate her whole life

by herself. And I know that's a struggle within itself as well. So

a part of me feels for her and a part of me is so sad and about her story because

being a young girl and being vulnerable to these men, it's just sad. And um

I do think that

this was a lesson that so we definitely wanted to give to readers

no matter how uncomfortable the story may have been for some people.

I do think it's a lesson that

there are people who live her life. This is not a made up story.

There are people who live in these environments where

they sell their body, they do things for money. They,

they don't have any ambition in life.

Their only goal is to live in the day and not live in the future.

And I think that's where she went wrong in her life.

Um Also to add about the story with uh Steven Alexander,

like the very first discussion we had,

I think their stories are very similar. Um

You know, when the mother went to jail,

the kids definitely definitely fell off because the guidance left them.

The pressure of like having to do good in life was no longer there.

And I think that's another thing that

Chalala

never had was someone who was on her like neck,

not literally but metaphorically like

someone who was like pushing her to be better.

And I do think as humans, we need a sense of that at some point, not

maybe as much as others, but I do think you need something to push you

and if you don't have that push, you don't have that ambition.

So

I think that's what

was similar between them two.

Um Overall, I do think that um

this her or sorry, the character of

Chalala

was

definitely

needed in his story. Um

You know, um

I just think it showed how

a young girl

like this in her environment, it just swallowed up so quickly because

of no one, you know, and

I know

I'm sorry, I

um

OK, my thought was like, I know that some people might find it harsh to say that

oh, like her life was on her.

But I think as humans, like I said, the pressure, I think the pressure,

if she had the pressure of thinking

my life is on me

and I need to do well for me,

she might have turned out better.

Um, but I don't think she ever thought of that. She might have just

thought so shallow about things and I don't think she really delved into like

how her life was or

how she could just be something more,

more than what she thought she could be.

So, I do think that, um,

overall

Chalala

did show less control and more control in her life.

Um, she also

could have turned her life around, she didn't want to and

ultimately she was the fall of her own

fate.

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