Civic Pride
- Today is civics day at the Center.
- But this is not the same civics lesson Delphine's been getting at school back home in Brooklyn—this day is devoted to telling the children all of their rights as citizens of the U.S. in order to protect them against unlawful searches or suspicious behaviors by the police.
- Unfortunately, Crazy Kelvin is helping with the lesson.
- He keeps trying to get the kids to call the police officers "pigs," and he starts picking at Hirohito, whose father was apparently arrested recently for no reason.
- Delphine starts to feel bad for the boy now.
- Sister Mukumbu is unhappy with how Kelvin is treating Hirohito, so she interrupts him and then shows him the door.
- Hirohito's story makes Delphine think about the one time she was truly scared for her father: They were driving down in Alabama visiting Big Ma when a police officer knocked on the car window and called Pa… well, he used a slur that Delphine doesn't even want to say.
- Delphine remembers that Pa described the experience as "'Same old, same old.'"
- That sticks with you.