The Sellout

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Parts 2-4

Part 5

Parts 6-8

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Racial and Personal Identity

The tension between racial and personal identity propels the story. Me introduces himself as “a [B]lack man” (6), but he doesn’t allow his racial identity to dictate his thoughts and feelings. In the Supreme Court, he waits for the “overwhelming sense of [B]lack guilt to drop [him] to [his] knees” (18), but the intense feelings never arise. Me confesses, “I don’t feel guilty” (20). The Black Supreme Court Justice (strongly implied to be Clarence Thomas) tries to make him feel guilty, as do his dad and Foy Cheshire. Even his romantic interest, Marpessa, diagnoses him with “Attachment Disorder” (183) for not interacting appropriately with Black culture. Me doesn’t follow the figurative script. When cops murder his dad, he doesn’t perform the expected actions. Me explains:

You’re supposed to cry when your dad dies. Curse the system because your father has died at the hands of the police. Bemoan being lower-middle-class and colored in a police state that protects only rich white people and movie stars of all races (42).

Instead, Me takes his dad to the donut shop, denies the think tank members the chance to exploit the death, then buries him in the backyard. Me’s singular behavior doesn’t detach him from Blackness. He is Black, and Blackness is why his dad died and why so many people pressure him to act in ways that comport with their ideas of Black identity. Yet being Black doesn’t consume his identity. He doesn’t allow his racial identity to subsume his personal identity.

Me confesses, “I couldn’t care less about being [B]lack” (43). Yet he cares about Dickens and makes the community better by preserving his unique personal identity and keeping general norms about race from compromising his vision. Quoting his dad, Me says, “People eat the shit you shovel them” (53). Me, unbeholden to a typical Black identity, can shovel the people of Dickens different “shit.” Ironically, what brings the community together isn’t anti-racism but racism. The presence of visible racism brings the people of Dickens together, giving them a common enemy to resist and strive against. The passengers behave on the bus, the gang members get along, and middle school students excel.

Me never severs the tie between personal identity and race, but his antics demonstrate the many ways to pair race and personal identity. A person has to be alert and open to myriad combinations of race and personal identity. Blackness is “the realization that there are no absolutes, except when there are. It’s the acceptance of contradiction not being a sin and a crime but a human frailty” (255). There can’t be a truce between personal identity and race, and Me can never answer the question about who he is and who he should become because personal identity is paradoxical, messy, and vulnerable. As race links to personal identity, it, too, is intricate, incongruent, and delicate. The negotiation between Racial and Personal Identity is a process that never stops. Me accepts the process and does not attempt to provide closure.

Capitalism’s Power to Co-opt Activism

The story pits capitalism against truth and activism. In other words, it focuses on the conflict between consumerism and justice. The theme manifests immediately with Me’s Supreme Court appearance in the Prologue. The salesperson’s rhetoric merges with the Supreme Court’s motto and the pressure Me once felt to create a motto for his Black people. Me admits, “Growing up, I used to think all of [B]lack America’s problems could be solved if we only had a motto” (12). Me couples the complex issues facing Black Americans to marketing. He used to believe that if he could create a keen motto—a tagline Black people can buy into—then maybe he could alter their situation. Now he views all such slogans as empty promises, as evidenced by his daydream in which the leader of the March on Washington steps to the podium and says “Things go better with Coke” (19).

In Paul Beatty’s satire, honesty and justice are irreconcilable with the pursuit of profit. If a person is seeking wealth and fame, they’re not committed to truth and bettering the world. Foy Cheshire and Jon McJones brand themselves as bastions of truth, as people trying to help their communities, but their main concern is themselves and their wealth. Foy wants his books on the curriculum of every middle school not because they represent truth and will benefit the kids, but because the book sales will help him.

McJones is in a similar situation. Foy tries to stick up for his friend. He tells Me, “At least McJones cares,” and Me counters, “[H]e cares about [B]lack people like a seven-footer cares about basketball. He has to care because what else would he be good at” (202). Me sees both Foy and McJones as having their priorities backward. They claim to be living for the community, but in fact their interest in the community is entirely self-aggrandizing.

Me’s projects aren’t profitable. While he makes money off his fruit and weed, he also gives it away. His restoration of segregation doesn’t produce a notable income. It’s a selfless endeavor he does for Dickens. The racism he perpetuates rallies the community. As Marpessa tells him, “Makes them realize how far we’ve come and, more important, how far we have to go. On that bus it’s like the specter of segregation has brought Dickens together” (147). Me’s activism and truth sets up a showdown with Foy, who stands for capitalism. As Foy winds up a temporarily insane attempted murderer, Beatty reveals the downsides of trying to pass off economic exploitation as truth and activism. As Me winds up before the Supreme Court, he finds that siding with truth and activism also has its own drawbacks, but he retains his dignity and unique identity.

Fathers and Sons

The main relationship in the story is between Me and F. K., and their complex bond yields broader insights into relationships between fathers and sons. Me sees the theme as transcending race. He explains, “[T]he most basic of needs, the child’s need to please the father […] has produced great presidents and great pretenders, birthed captains of industry and captains of football” (43). Me feels the need to please his dad, and the urge is somewhat contradictory. The relationship is rather antagonistic, with F. K. subjecting his son to harsh, jarring experiments. Yet Me remains dedicated to his dad. After the cops kill him, he cares for his body and buries him in the backyard. When he gets the $2 million settlement money, he realizes his dad’s dream and buys the farm. Me tells the reader, “No, I don’t miss my father” (53), but his actions indicate otherwise.

As with race and personal identity, the theme of fathers and sons isn’t tidy. Me can’t stop thinking about his dad: He recalls their trips to Dodgers baseball games and remembers the After the Fact game he made him play regardless of whatever else he was doing. Me dutifully attends the Dum Dum Donut Intellectuals meetings and takes on the role of the N***** Whisperer. It’s as if his dad’s influence is inescapable. Foy gives me a copy of his Tom Soarer book with the inscription, “Like father, like son” (203). Me is like his dad, but he’s not an exact copy. While F. K. sent Me’s mom pictures of his penis, Me sends Marpessa pictures of the fruit from the farm. F. K. fails to change Me’s behavior and get him to comply with norms about race, but Me succeeds in improving the behavior of Dickens’s citizens.

Me also improves his dad’s theory of Quintessential Blackness by adding another stage to honor Black people (or non-Black people whom Me casts as Black) for “simply not giving a fuck” (254). Me uses his dad’s theory to create a separate theory about Black identity—one that complies with his belief that the relationship between Racial and Personal Identity is messy and ever-evolving. Me can’t decouple himself from his dad any more than he can separate himself from his race, but as with race, he can use his dad’s legacy without letting his dad define him.