The Sellout

November arrives, and Me has two things on his mind: Growing potatoes and segregating all of Dickens. Hominy suggests making people wear a badge and putting them in camps. He then proposes introducing a racial caste system. None of Hominy’s ideas inspire Me, and his irrigation system for the potatoes also falls flat. Me thinks about buying apples with his dad. He bought an apple tree and planted it near where he buried his dad in the backyard. A couple of days later, the tree died. Memory over, Me has an idea: Head to the Dum Dum Donut Intellectuals.

The Dum Dum Donut Intellectuals is losing its luster, and Foy’s numerous kids are suing him for causing them emotional distress via his public persona. For this meeting, Jon McJones, a Black conservative who added the “Mc” to his last name, reads from his recent book, Mick, Please: The Black Irish Journey from Ghetto to Gaelic. With the reading over, Foy announces the cancellation of his latest TV show, Black Checker, and he promotes his new book, The Adventures of Tom Soarer—a Weapon of Mass Education (WME) that will squash Wheaton.

To stave off the think tank’s decline, Foy uses his connections to bring in the TV star Bill Cosby, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell—famous figures whose names are printed in the novel with blanks in place of most letters. A debate breaks out over whether it’s better to be born in America or Africa. McJones calls Dickens a “shantytown,” and King Cuz shuts him up, which attracts the attention of Rice. Soon, Cuz teaches the illustrious Black figures how to Crip Walk.

As Me prepares to leave, he confronts Foy about McJones’s belief that Black people might have had a better life under slavery. Foy says that at least McJones cares about Black people, and Me says he only cares because “what else would he be good at” (221). Foy admits he’s worried about the all-white school because white students won’t buy his books. He gives Me a copy of Tom Soarer with the inscription, “Like father, like son” (203). Me asks Foy if he has the racist Our Gang movies, and Foy walks away.

Me and Hominy segregate Dickens together. Hominy comes in, does a song-and-dance performance, and pretends the “COLORED ONLY” sign he puts in the window of the establishment is a part of the act. Sometimes, as a tribute to his dad, Me wears his F. K.’s white lab coat, and Me and Hominy implement some segregation in almost all of Dickens, including the movie theater and Martin Luther “Killer” King Jr. Hospital.

Charisma asks Me to come up with a counter to Black History Month and National Hispanic Heritage Month, and Me comes up with Whitey Week. For 30 minutes, the kids celebrate white people’s contribution to leisure. They turn a carwash into a race wash, where the kids can become multiple kinds of whiteness while listening to white music like Hootie & the Blowfish.

Hominy thinks about what would happen if white people came to Dickens and saw the racism: They’d call them “crazy” then carry on. Me isn’t so sure. Black culture used to be more separate; now, it’s mainstream. Me suspects he’s going to jail.

Hood Day arrives. King Cuz’s gang, the Colosseum Blvd et Tu, Brute Gangster Munificent Neighborhood Crips ‘n’ Shit, used to fight their rival, the Venice Seaside Boys (VSB) on Broadway, but gentrification has scattered their members. To make commuting easier, the crews meet at the sight of a former clash and reenact the battle like a Civil War reenactment. After the reenactment, they peacefully gather at the Little League baseball field for beer and a barbecue. There are more gangs in Dickens, and for Hood Day, the other gangs typically reserve the park for a specific day. This Hood Day, all the gangs celebrate on the same day—maybe the camaraderie is due to segregation.

A Hood Day banner hangs over the home team dugout, and Me sells his fruit to the Dickens citizens. MC Panache performs, then eats Me’s pineapple. Marpessa tells her husband she’s having sex with Me. Panache says that if he could get such delicious pineapple every day, he’d have sex with Me.

Me and Hominy attend the LA Festival of Forbidden Cinema and Unabashedly Racist Animation. The screening includes Our Gang shorts of white characters in blackface and cartoons based on stereotypes. After the Our Gang shorts, the host spotlights Hominy and summons him to the stage. A bearded white man in a fedora condemns the blackface. At first, Hominy doesn’t understand the term, then he replies: It’s not blackface—it’s acting.

Me highlights Hominy’s humor and wonders if the hardships of being Black made him funny. Maybe Black people used humor as a sign of humanity. Me says there aren’t many funny Black people left and implies it’s due to the decline of overt racism.

A dark-skinned Black woman who introduces herself as Topsy shows Hominy a record of all the Our Gang movies. There are 227 shorts, but six are missing—Foy has those six. Me, Butterfly, and Hominy drive to Foy’s foreclosed home in Hollywood Hills, and Me, remembering the code to the gate, lets Hominy and Butterfly in before he runs off to watch a basketball game. He runs into Foy, who’s working on a book of essays, Me Talk White One Day, and seems to be living out of his car.

Returning to Foy’s foreclosed home, he sees Hominy and Butterfly skinny dipping in the pool. They didn’t find the movies, but Hominy is fine, and a contemplative Me joins them. He brought back Dickens and segregation, and he’s farming and in a relationship with Marpessa, but he still doesn’t know who he is.

As Chaff Middle School is on its way to becoming the fourth-best public school in Los Angeles, its refusal to admit white people turns into a problem. The New-ish Republic publishes a cover story, “The New Jim Crow: Has Public Education Clipped the Wings of the White Child?,” accompanied by a photo of a 12-year-old white boy. Five white children, protected by Foy and the media, enter the school. Under Foy’s leadership, the Dum Dum Donut Intellectuals has withered to zero. Not even Barack Obama brought people to the think tank.

Unlike the Little Rock Nine in Arkansas, the Dickens Five don’t receive racial slurs or spit on their faces. Instead, the people of Dickens ask them for autographs and about their prom dates. Mimicking Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, Charisma tries to stop them. Hominy and Me stand behind her. Foy claims he has DNA results that show the Dickens Five have Kenyan roots.

Me tells the white kids: If they want to attend school in Dickens, they should wait for the fake white school to open. The white school intrigues the kids, and Foy tries to persuade the white kids to stay focused on attending Chaff.

Me remembers how his dad played a game with him, After the Fact, where he’d show Me a historical photo and ask him what happened next. The game happened any time, like during Me’s first Little League game. One of the questions and photos involves the Little Rock Nine. After the federal government forced Little Rock to integrate, the governor, Faubus, shut down the high schools for the 1958-59 school year.

Back in the present, Foy leads the Dickens Five in a dramatic rendition of “We Shall Overcome.” Foy pulls out a gun and shoots his car. The trunk pops open, and he takes out a can of white paint. He points the gun at Me, then at his own ear as he dumps the white paint on his head. Echoing his father, Me says to Foy, “You have to ask yourself two questions: Who am I, and how may I become myself?” (260). Foy shoots Me in the stomach, but a sheriff’s deputy tells him the wound is superficial—it hit him in the love handles. Me tells the deputy and the medics what he’s done with Dickens. The deputy tells him to call Hampton Fiske’s number.

Hampton shows up late to the grand jury indictment, and the California attorney general, who is Black and Asian (the future vice president, Kamala Harris), charges him with violating multiple Civil Rights Acts, the 13th and 14th Amendments, and six of the Ten Commandments. Judge Nguyen, a Vietnamese American, seemingly commends Me’s actions, promises him due process, prepares the trial participants for a case that will reach the Supreme Court, and sets bail at “a cantaloupe and two kumquats” (266).

With the courtroom artist, Fred Manne, Me does impressions of Jack Nicholson in the legal/military drama A Few Good Men (1992) and tells Fred his drawing makes him look like Blackula. Fred is Jewish, and he claims Jewish people know when to leave and have an escape plan, but Black people don’t.

In the courtroom, a white man (possibly Adam Yauch of the 1990s rap group The Beastie Boys) is in Me’s seat. He expresses his solidarity with Me. Hampton debates the meaning of the words separate, equal, and Black and uses F. K.’s theory of Quintessential Blackness to define Black. The theory divides Black identity into stages. Stage I features people like Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Coral from The Real World: Back to New York (2001)—these Black people put mainstream acceptance ahead of dignity.

The Chief Justice interrupts, but Hampton pushes forward. Stage II features people consumed by race but less negatively—Jesse Jackson, Foy Cheshire, and Kim Kardashian are examples. Stage III features people like Rosa Parks and Ichiro Suzuki—they battle injustice and want peace. After court, Me remarks that there should be a Stage IV, which he calls Unmitigated Blackness, containing figures like Richard Pryor, Charlie Parker, Bjork, and the members of the Wu-Tang Clan—they don’t care what people think of them.

Foy Cheshire is innocent of attempted murder charges due to temporary insanity. Me files a civil suit and wins, but Foy has no money or valuable possessions aside from the controversial Our Gang shorts. Me gets them and, returning home from the trial, has a viewing party. As it turns out, Foy Cheshire was a child actor and appears in the shorts—one of which bears the name “Oil Ty-Coons!” King Cuz attributes Foy’s role to his mental condition.

After the shorts, Hominy quits slavery and tells Me they’ll discuss reparations later. Me talks to Marpessa about the possibility of jail time, and she directs his attention to the weather forecast on TV—it lists Dickens: Dickens is back.

Me remembers seeing a comedy show where the sharp Black comedian directed his ire at a white couple. He wanted to know what they were laughing at. He demanded that they leave, and they did. Me wonders why he didn’t say anything. Silence is often the product of fear, and Me is regularly afraid of the promises and threats he might articulate. The comedian told the white couple, “This is our thing!” (264). Me wishes he had asked the comedian what he meant by “our thing.”

A Black person becomes President of the United States. Dickens is jubilant, and Foy drives around waving an American flag. Me never saw Foy wave the flag before, and Foy says it feels like America has paid its debts. Me asks about the Indigenous peoples, Chinese people, Latinx people, poor people, air, water, and so on. Foy shakes his head and says Me’s dad would feel ashamed of him. Foy says Me won’t ever understand, and Me agrees.