Summary

Pages 88 through 92 – In this section, the author describes the contrasting circumstances of his young family’s early life in New York City: the constant support and companionship of black family and friends, juxtaposed with the constant images and experiences of reckless freedom and selfish affluence evident in white people. He comments on the need for him and other black people, but particularly black men, to be on guard and ready to experience violence, and suggests that this aspect of black existence is, in a way, a stealing of time from black people. He describes his family’s visit to a preschool; his son’s immediate, unprejudiced, unconditional playfulness; his (the author’s) impulse to tell him to calm down, an impulse he didn’t act on; and his subsequent shame at having had the impulse at all.

Pages 92 through 99 – Here the author outlines...