IUPUN
letter. Each response is worth 5 points.
1. Coates points out early in the article that Abraham Lincoln's famous proclamation that the
battle of Gettysburg must ensure "that the government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth" (2) was not being aspirational. However, he does say
that the line is problematic. What is problematic about this line? Why?
2. Coates talks about his father beating him when he was growing up. While he acknowledges this
was problematic, what rationalization does his father give for this behavior? Why does he feel
he was faced with this decision?
3. Growing up, Coates talks about watching "freedom marchers, Freedom Riders, and Freedom
Summers" (10). What didn't he like about these events? How did it make him feel about his
own experience growing up?
4. What institution does Coates refer to as his "Mecca." Why do you think he chooses to make this
comparison? Hint, if you don't know, look up what Mecca means.
5. Coates discusses how he was troubled by the novelist Saul Bellow's comment "Who is the
Tolstoy of the Zulus?" (13). What did Bellow mean by this comment? How did this make Coates
feel?
as reads annther quote from the essayist Ralph Wiley who responds to Bellow's