What does this Dick Gregory quote mean?What does this Dick Gregory quote mean? "The teacher thought I was stupid. Couldn't spell, couldn't read,...

The literal meaning of this quote is evident on its face
value.  Gregory is talking about how he was perceived by his teacher at a certain point
in his grade school days.  He is saying that the teacher simply thought that his lack of
success in school was due to his lack of mental ability.

To
truly understand what Gregory is saying, however, you need to understand
why he is telling us this.  He is telling us that he was
really doing so badly in school because he was hungry.  He was too poor to be able to
eat well and so he was constantly distracted by his
hunger.

The point that Gregory is trying to make is that
children from disadvantaged backgrounds are often not given a fair chance by the school
system.  They run up against people who write them off as stupid when their problems are
really connected to their poverty, not to their intellectual
ability.