The writing of these stories began when a sixteen-year-old black girl sitting in a high school class in Trenton N.J raised her hand. Her all black class had been assigned the task of writing a short essay on any personal experience with a white person. She raised her hand to say simply, "I don't know any white people except my teachers." Then other hands throughout the class sprung up as other students expressed the same problem. Ta-Nehisi Coates,...