Prime Time 7, Coursebook plus Semester Self-checks

9 The US: Racial (in)equality – in real life Feelings a) Look at the expressions below and use each of them in a sentence that makes clear what these words mean. If in doubt use a dictionary or an online reference tool. happy irritated infuriated proud discouraged interested curious intimidated surprised angry ambitious scared self-confident shy self-conscious frustrated hurt excited b) Highlight the words that have a positive meaning. Before you read a) Imagine the situation of a bright, ambitious teenager from an underprivileged background going to an elitist university. How would such a student feel when entering such an institution for the first time? b) On your own, make a mind map and collect all the aspects (neutral, positive and/or negative) that come to your mind. c) Compare your mind map with that of a partner and discuss your ideas. Listening and reading: Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Listen, and then read the title story of ZZ Packer’s short story collection Drinking Coffee Elsewhere . Focus on the emotions of the narrator and highlight passages that show Dina’s feelings very clearly. I think it’s the architecture 1  2  3  7 3.3 Orientation games began the day I arrived at Yale from Baltimore. In my group we played heady, frustrating games for smart people. One game appeared to be charades reinterpreted by existentialists; another involved listening to rocks. Then a freshman counsellor made everyone play Trust. The idea was that if you had the faith to fall backward and wait for four scrawny former high school geniuses to catch you, just before your head cracked on the slate sidewalk, then you might learn to trust your fellow students. Russian roulette sounded like a better way to go. “No way,” I said. The white boys were waiting for me to fall, holding their arms out for me, sincerely, gallantly. “No fucking way.” “It’s all cool, it’s all cool,” the counsellor said. Her hair was a shade of blond I’d seen only on Playboy covers, and she raised her hands as though backing away from a growling dog. “Sister,” she said, in an I’m-down-with-the-struggle voice, “you don’t have to play this game. As a person of colour, you shouldn’t have to fit into any white, patriarchal system.” I said, “It’s a bit too late for that.” In the next game, all I had to do was wait in a circle until it was my turn to say what inanimate object I wanted to be. One guy said he’d like to be a gadfly, like Socrates. I didn’t bother mentioning that gadflies weren’t inanimate – it didn’t seem to make a difference. The girl next to him was eating a rice cake. She wanted to be the Earth, she said. Earth with a capital E. There was one other black person in the circle. He wore an Exeter T-shirt and his overly elastic expressions resembled a series of facial exercises. At the end of each person’s turn, he smiled and bobbed his head with enthusiasm. “Oh, that was good,” he said, as if the game were an experiment he’d set up and the results were turning out better than he’d expected. “Good, good, good!” When it was my turn I said, “My name is Dina, and if I had to be any object, I guess I’d be a revolver.” The sunlight dulled as if on cue. Clouds passed rapidly overhead and the sky looked like rain. I don’t know why I said it. Until that moment I’d been good in all the ways that were meant to matter. I was an honour roll student – though I’d learned long ago not to mention it in the part of Baltimore where I lived. Suddenly I was hard-bitten and headstrong, the kind of kid who took pleasure in sticking pins into cats; the 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 126 Ethnic and cultural diversity Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv