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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What bothers the author about artists like Michael Jackson?

2. What is PG County?

3. How did the author's father react when the author threatened his 9th grade teacher?

4. What 1986 event helped solidify the author's view that violence is inevitable?

5. Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus, according to Coats?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the author mean when he says the school system and the streets are "two arms of the same beast"?

2. What is the symbolism behind the author's son's name?

3. For what reasons did the author's father punish him and why?

4. What is the author's interpretation of "The Dream"?

5. Why did the author's son experience such extreme grief when Michael Brown's killer was set free?

6. According to the author, what is the purpose of the public school system?

7. How does the author use poetry to express his thoughts?

8. What revelation does the author have about the European perception of Africans during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

9. What conflicting thoughts does the author have about the civil rights movement of the 1960s?

10. According to the author, how has the lack of fathers and father-figures affected black children?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The author states that when he was troubled or afraid, “I could not retreat, as did so many, into the church and its mysteries.” (page 28) How did Coates use academic study as a balm to soothe the chaos surrounding his life? In the same section he also says that he had “no sense that any just God was on my side”. Whom or what did the author use in lieu of a spiritual guide? Did he find a sense of inner peace with his books? Explain your answer citing examples from the memoir.

Essay Topic 2

Describe the author's encounter with his unnamed French friend in Paris. What reservations did Coates have throughout the entire day? Why was he uncomfortable having his friend pay for the meal? What past experiences might have prompted him to insist that his friend walk out of the restaurant first? Describe what the author means when he says he feels he missed out on part of the experience because his eyes "were blindfolded by fear."

Essay Topic 3

The author often refers to white people as those who "believe themselves white." He also speaks often of dissociation. How might the concept of race and dissociation be related in America today? Is race a genetic or social construct?

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