The Beautiful Struggle

Chapter 7 opens with Coates’s account of his failed romantic endeavors. He explains that he “was born under a lame sign” (184). He describes how the girls in his spheres would act: “Girls of Knowledge would shoot a nigger down without so much as eye contact, because they knew every smile […] compromised security” (186). Coates, at 17 years old, is coasting through his senior year with a 1.8 GPA, which is offset by his natural aptitude for standardized testing.

Coates meets Ebony, the girl “at the front of the class, [who] knew all the answers” (187). She was “black and beautiful like her name […] and […] this made her prominent to [him]” (188). She is Conscious and always laughing.

Coates’s djembe obsession continues in the dance studio, as “nothing short of religion can explain the molten feeling [he] derived from it all” (191). He even builds his own djembe, “a giant step toward seeing more” (192). That year, Coates’s PSAT scores are good enough that Mecca—Howard University—sends him a letter. He wants to get in but feigns nonchalance for fear he won’t.

Big Bill is still at Howard, struggling in school but now at least attempting to get better grades. When he gets a C plus average, their father is ecstatic. Coates continues his relationship with Ebony, and his grades “improved in direct proportion to the time [he] spent around her” (197). When she leaves a love note for him, “written in that vague, noncommittal way of a girl who wants you to know what she feels but wants to protect herself all the same” (197–198), he doesn’t recognize it as such.

Still, at school, he keeps improving, with an English teacher telling him he might have a gift for writing. He doesn’t show up for the graduation ceremony, but finally he graduates and has an acceptance to Morgan State.

Soon, Coates’s father reveals he is in a relationship with Jovett and is leaving Coates’s mother. Coates is upset but “said nothing, just nodded [his] head and listened until it was time to drive away” (203).