Long Division

Content Warning: The source text deals with issues including racism, anti-gay bias, antisemitism, the loss of a child, and domestic abuse. The source text also includes racial slurs, which are censored throughout this guide.

Fourteen-year-old Citoyen, or “City,” Coldson is rivals with his classmate LaVander Peeler at Fannie Lou Hamer Magnet School. Both City and LaVander are Black, but LaVander bullies City for being (he claims) “white, homeless, [and] homosexual” (3). Both boys are also competing in the 2013 Can You Use That Word in a Sentence contest, which started in 2006 and is coming to Mississippi for the first time. Contest participants are given words they must use in “dynamic” sentences.

City and LaVander tie in the state competition. The next day, everyone gathers around the rivals during lunch to listen to them battle with sentences. They throw insults at each other, trying to prove who’s better. City knows LaVander’s sentences are good but doubts he knows what they mean. City focuses on staying mentally strong during their battles, like his grandmother (“Grandma”) and uncle (“Uncle Relle”) taught him. Grandma lives in Melahatchie, and Uncle Relle stays with her a few nights a week.