Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What are 4-5 historical events that likely contributed to racial tensions in America today? What difficulties might arise when individuals or groups try to talk about the impact of racism on people of color? What communication strategies might be beneficial in talking about these issues?

Teaching Suggestion: Students may have direct experiences with discrimination and thus may find this subject matter difficult to discuss. It might be helpful to introduce the premise of Mira Jacob’s Good Talk by highlighting that it is a real-life account of a brown woman’s experiences with racism in America and her hopes for the future in which her son will grow up. Mira lives in Brooklyn, New York and has been the victim of both covert and overt racism. In the memoir, these experiences shape who she becomes, her self-image, the way she parents her son, and the way she views her country. This question connects to the memoir’s theme Racism in America and Its Effects on People of Color.

• FBI-sourced statistics on