Laymon feels like his ethnicity demands the attention of all his white peers and colleagues because they automatically assume he will express inferior ideas and demonstrate inferior work.

At university, he once again receives the cold shoulder from his peers, but this time it's more obvious why he doesn't fit. He's a smart kid, but he's bullied for these same manners. Thanks to his mom's insistence on proper grammar and high grades, Laymon stands out among his peers in school. Alienationīoth among the black members of his community in Jackson and among the predominantly white population of his college, Laymon feels a profound sense of alienation. He no longer allows the expectations of others to dictate how he feels about or treats himself. He turns to health as a means of securing his own self-worth, proving to himself that he's capable and valuable and desirable. He hasn't resolved those adolescent dramas yet. In college, Laymon addresses these problems when he realizes that his weight is a direct reflection of his self-perception. His mom desires to spare Laymon the oppressive racial violence of society toward black men, but she actually secures Laymon's stereotype among peers by forcing him to comply with patterns of behavior far outside the norm of his community. His role models are scarce and obviously insufficient because - at least in his mother's case - they promise their motivation is for a certain outcome which they actually realize by their methods. Faced with his mother's direct rebellion against her community's expectations of her as a black woman and with the continued rejection of his family by peers, Laymon must embrace ambiguity and awkwardness at a young age. He encounters this problem most dramatically in college, but the symptoms had begun accruing for years beforehand. Throughout this book, Laymon's primary dilemma appears to be self-worth. Written by people who wish to remain anonymous We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

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