In “Who Shot Johnny” by Debra Dickerson, Dickerson recounts the shooting of her 17-year-old nephew, Johnny. She traces the profile of her life, establishing a noteworthy perception about herself. From a first-person point of view, Dickerson describes the events that occurred after the shooting and how those events related to his way of life. In the essay, he uses the killing of his nephew to omit the relationship between African American society and the stereotypical African American society. In a clever way to establish credibility, Dickerson opens the passage with a compendium of background information. He uses an ethological approach to describe the intellectual background he carries on his chest. Dickerson wants the reader to make a connection between the intellect and black society. He even states, “I do it because I know that those of us who are not well-fed white men in suits must not cede the debate to them, however well-intentioned or well-informed we may be.” (224). If intellect were reserved exclusively for “well-fed white boys,” blacks soc...