Essay Questions

At one point the author makes a great deal of “facts” of U.S. History that he was never taught or that history classes got wrong. What fact does the author himself get completely wrong in this section?

The author tells how a teacher showed him the four coins of American currency, explaining how the image of Lincoln is the only one looking to the right while the other three presidents look to the left: “Almost as if they were turning their backs on him.” Well, almost. If you line the coins according to worth from the most to the least, this is true. On the other hand, if you line the coins in what would be the only really logical order—in value of worth from least to greatest—it looks like Lincoln is a lone rebel defiantly standing up to a crowd, two of whom were too cowardly to do what it eventually took his becoming President to finally set right. Also, the entire premise of his complaint is historically unsound. The author’s inference when he writes “He was placed on the lowest denomination” is misleading Lincoln was the first president to be featured on a coin and as such it would only make sense to begin this tradition with either the coin of the lowest denomination or the coin with the greatest circulation. Which just happens to be the same thing in this situation.

What slang term that has been widely used in certain regions of the country since well before the author’s birth does he inexplicably take credit for coining?

Johnson grew up in New Jersey and perhaps that partially explains why he seems to have never heard the word “honeychild” before he was old enough to go to school. Except, of course, it isn’t like this is the memoir of a writer who grew up during the Depression. The book references video games and movies based on Stephen King stories, yet somehow he never managed to see movies or television shows where characters use the word “honeychild.” According to him, one day at school this word “just rolled off my tongue so naturally, full of sass” and before long had so thoroughly entered the lexicon of students that it was creating controversy. Anyone who has lived in the South from Virginia to Texas will gladly inform you that “honeychild” existed long before that fateful day that Mr. Johnson claims to have “created my first term in gay lingo” and that even today its use usually had nothing at all to do with sexuality.

The opening lines of the book present a jarring image of violence instrumental to the author’s development. How is it misleading?

Chapter 1 is subtitled “Smile” and commences with this shocking opening: “I was five years old when my teeth got kicked out. It was my first trauma.” Almost any reader picking up the book will already realize it is a memoir about growing up black and gay in America. So, it is only natural to assume that this event is chosen as the image upon which to open the narrative because the attack was stimulated as a hate crime directed either toward him being black or “acting gay.” (Rather than being say since he was, after all, just five at the time.) Ultimately, however, it is revealed that the cause of the attack was never fully identified. The bullies were a mix of both white and black kids so the racial motive is suspect. And, once again, just how gay can a five year old boy act that other kids are moved to such violence? Having your teeth knocked out at age five would be deeply traumatic for anyone, but premise of the book suggests with ferocity that attack is related to one of the main themes that will be explored. That it may possibly have been but nobody knows for sure somewhat dims the immediate shock value and winds up seeming purposely misleading.