Page 1144 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing
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classmates. While hearing angry words such as “Oreo” and “white
boy” hurled at me from the black table, I was also dodging impatient
questions from white classmates: “Why do all those black kids sit
together?” or “Why don’t you ever sit with the other blacks?”
The black lunch table, like those other segregated tables, is a 22
comment on the superficial inroads that integration has made in
society. Perhaps I should be happy that even this is a long way from
where we started.
Yet, I can’t get over the fact that the 27th table in my junior high 23
school cafeteria is still known as the “black table”—14 years after my
adolescence.
Building Vocabulary
For each question, use your dictionary and context clues to choose
the meaning that most nearly defines the underlined word or phrase
as it is used in the essay.
1. The word espousing most nearly means
a. opposing.
b. explaining.
c. adopting.
d. discarding.
2. The word incensed most nearly means
a. angry.
