Teresa recorded, “I cannot help but smile when his eyes focus on mine. He is one of those people who could smile saying anything. He is a very happy man, even when he said, ‘and a white man spit in my eye, and all my anger, upbringing, non-violent learning swelled up in me.’ He is a preacher, a very charming man. He blinks, though, as if blinking back the pain that the telling of his memories invokes. He is not giving a speech. He is just speaking.”

This informal register, however, in no way stopped Cox from tackling the hard issues, foremost the right of all people to fight discrimination. As he put it, “If someone discriminates, you ought to holler as loud as you can. . . . The real crime is to be discriminated against and to walk away silently.” Students laughed moments later when Cox brought this home with an example of race reversal in which whites charged him with discrimination: “I taught some white kids and failed them. They said I did it ‘cause I was black.” Teresa noticed that “the African American woman/student sitting in front of me chuckled, lowering and shaking her head,” and speculated that “I think she probably was laughing because it is the typical ‘reverse racism’ response, and I think she was shocked because this response can be interpreted as an insult to Cox’s morals. That white students are so ignorant as to think that they are equally discriminated against by blacks.” Sidestepping the obvious question—whether or not the white students were justified in their complaints—Cox was instead highlighting their right as whites to level the charge of discrimination, their right to holler. (Chapter 2)