Describe the problem in the story, how was it resolved?

For a long time, Myers viewed being black as something that prevented him from having certain opportunities or experiences, and he also believed that the color of his skin was the reason for his inability to write for a living. Although he was intelligent, well-read and ultimately thrived in his elementary school, where he was one of the higher-flying students, his life became more of a social stereotype after his early entry into high school. He did not experience racism from either his fellow students or from his teachers, but he felt that he experienced racism from life in general; because his father had not received a good education, he did not have a particularly high-paying job. White collar jobs were not available to him and by the time Myers was in high school the family was seriously struggling financially. There was no money or opportunity for Myers to go to college. He began to drop out, and get involved in petty crime, even befriending a murderer and realizing that he would need to get out of town pretty soon for his own safety and wellbeing. This is why he joined the military.

On returning from his tour of duty, Myers fell into one dead-end blue collar job after another and was never really happy. He missed writing, he missed education, and he wanted to try to find a way to have them both. This is when the central irony of his life occurred; in his youth he had considered his race to be the barrier to writing for a living, but now, in drawing on his experiences as a young man, he was able to make his race the thing that enabled him to become a full-time writer.