Summary

“Do You Know What an Oreo Is?” begins with Thurston’s mother looking for a private junior high school, and they decide on Sidwell Friends. Thurston found Sidwell a foreign environment because most students were white and he felt singled out when African-American issues arose in the curriculum, like when reading Harriet Beecher Stowe. The young black man assigned as his buddy at Sidwell explained that an oreo was a black person on the outside and white inside.

In “Wealth-Related Horse Violence” Thurston reveals his father was killed during a drug deal in 1985. Thurston recalls the six memories he has of his father: playing with a remote–controlled boat, travelling to a construction site where his father worked, being teased by the cousins on his father’s side of the family, his father giving him a sip of beer, his father bringing him...