The African-American Special

This study guide will help you analyze the short story “The African-American Special” by Jason Reynolds which has been used for an exam in English A HHX on the 17th of August 2022. You can also find a summary of the text, as well as inspiration for interpreting it.

If you need help for Assigments 1-3 from the HHX A exam on the 17th of August 2022, you can find our guide here.

Presentation of the text

Title: “The African-American Special” (2018)
Author: Jason Reynolds
Genre: Short story

Jason Reynolds (b. 1983) is an American author and poet who mainly writes for young-adult and middle-grade audiences. His popular published books include Long Way Down, a novel written in verse, and the non-fiction book Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, written in collaboration with Ibram X. Kendi. Reynolds is known for his raw and honest portrayals of young people of color and his focus on issues of race, injustice, and inequity.

Excerpt from the study guide:

Symbol

The drink that Fortune always orders can be considered symbolic. Fortune refers to it as “the African-American special”, because it is beer from Trinidad mixed with Nigerian beer. This is the only drink Fortune drinks, and he uses it to forget his anger and fall asleep before he can try to get back to the house that he used to own and that has been foreclosed many years before. The drink is symbolic of the injustices and hardships Fortune faced. Because of the name, the drink also becomes a symbol of race inequality in general ...