Nikki-Rosa Essay Questions

Describe the speaker's attitude toward white people who are commenting on her life.

The speaker does not believe that white people understand the dynamics of her childhood. According to the speaker, white commenters always focus on the hardship and struggle she experienced due to her family's poverty. In truth, the speaker had a happy childhood because of her close relationship with her family. She believes that biographers and the public cannot understand that her childhood was happy despite her family's money problems.

What does the phrase "Black love is Black wealth" mean?

"Black love is Black wealth" means that to the speaker, the love she shared with her family was just as valuable, if not more valuable, than actual money. Though her family was technically poor, the speaker was not unhappy as a child because she felt "wealthy" due to the close relationships she had with her family members. This is something that she claims white observers do not understand.

What is the significance of the speaker mentioning "Hollydale"?

Hollydale was an all-Black housing development where the speaker's family was hoping to build a home. However, the family was denied a loan to build there due to racist lending practices. The speaker shows her father's disappointment at having to sell his stock in the development as a way to demonstrate that money was not the cause of the struggles she faced as a child. Here, the real pain came from having to see her father disappointed as "another dream goes." Her biographers and the public are so focused on her family's poverty that they miss the human pain and suffering that really affected the speaker due to her familial connections, not to mention the effects of racism, which are just as important here.