Fierce Intimacies Summary and Analysis

Cedric sits in his History of American Education class, contemplating the fact that all of the other students are "...guided by some mysterious encoded knowledge of history, economics, and education, of culture and social events, that they picked up in school or at home or God knows where" (p.190). Competing in this environment is rather comparable to being dropped into a foreign country without the language or cultural understanding. He is clearly a product of "affirmative action," a topic of current hot debate, given the recent California Board of Regents decision to end the practice of racial admission quotas. What Cedric now understands is that admission is the sum total of affirmative action for disadvantaged minorities. Continued support of counseling or extra tutoring is not available in most instances, and the dropout rate of these kids far exceeds that...