“I wasn’t sure who I really was, but I understood where I was”. (Page 126)

Kiese now attending college begins to struggle with finding his own identity in a school thats filled with people who do not want to see him succeed. Having freedom away from his mother since she left for school he has to become his own man. In the beginning Kiese uses this freedom to eat an abnormal amount of food and gains a ton of weight. After reading this I felt as if Kiese was lost, and was eating his way out of his problems. It’s only until he is almost 300 pounds his friend Ray Gunn asked if he was depressed. This is a topic Kiese never thought about growing up however, it is something the reader can see. In school Kiese began bringing in multiple books that have nothing to do with the lesson to show his white classmates and his teacher he reads more than them. This goes back to the quote I chose where he said he did not know who he was but where he was. Kiese knew his teachers and classmates wanted to see him fail so he wanted to show them that he is not some dumb kid from Jackson. A major turning point I found in the text was in page 139 when Kiese grabs the belt his mother was beating him with and threw it down. This was the first time Kiese stood up for himself and did not just let his mother beat him. I believe this action begins to give Kiese his identity. He begins working out and losing a lot of weight, he even writes an essay about the racism at Millsaps college for a newspaper. Kiese begins to find himself as someone fighting back for the things he believes in.