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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. How did the author spend most of his time at The Mecca?

2. What sorts of toys was the author not allowed to have as a child?

3. What difference does the author see between his childhood and that of his son?

4. How did the author's father discipline him?

5. What sense does the author describe experiencing as he watched television as a child?

Short Essay Questions

1. What role did violence play in the author's childhood?

2. What is meant by "Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?"

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

4. How important were books to the author as he was growing up?

5. What role did religion play in the author's childhood?

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

7. According to the author, how have American police departments been given the right to destroy black bodies without the fear of recrimination?

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

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

10. How does the author compare his childhood to that of his son?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The moment Samori realized the death of Michael Brown would not be avenged; the instant that a four-year-old (Dr.) Mable Jones was pulled away from the front of the bus; the split-second the author realized through the medium of television that there was another world outside of his inner-city Baltimore - what do all of these points in time have in common? What one lesson did each person learn in his or her critical moment? How might other black Americans have faced similar racial epiphanies?

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 was not raised in a religious family, nor did he develop an interest in subscribing to a personal religion or spirituality as an adult. How might his completely academic nature conflict with the traditional religious views of the black community? How might his spiritual beliefs, or lack thereof, affect the tone of his writing? How might a traditionally religious black community react to such a tone?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,311 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample