In Everything that rises converges the everyday event of the son riding the integrated bus with his mother brings out his mother's anti-black racism but also the contradiction with her son who dislikes this racism but at the same time feels grateful that his mother paid his way through college. The Star Food shows how the son (also relations with parents) feels bad that he just doesn't seem to have the ambition that his parents have as he for example failed to detect a shoplifter in their store.