The Sellout: Chapter 23 Summary & Analysis

Two weeks later, the “New-ish Republic” magazine has a cover story called “The New Jim Crow,” which asks if “Public Education [has] Clipped the Wings of the White Child?” The narrator’s father taught the narrator that every time a magazine features a rhetorical question on its cover, the answer is always “no.” A week after the issue is released, five white children attempt to reintegrate Chaff Middle School, but Charisma stops them. Chaff has become the fourth-highest-ranked public school in the county, while white parents begin to withdraw their children from their own schools and insist on a return to the practice of bussing to force reintegration.

The white children who go to Chaff are known as “the Dickens Five.” Charisma stands with her arms across the entrance to the school, saying: “No Anglos allowed.” Hominy is at Chaff that day, having been invited to “tutor Jim Crow.” Foy is also there, on the side of the white children. He claims to have evidence that one of the children has ancestors from the Great Rift Valley in Kenya. The Dickens Five then turn around and spot the image of the Wheaton Academy, and immediately gravitate toward it. Foy warns them that it is “a graven image” and nothing more than “a racist joke,” but the students, mesmerized, reply that it “looks so real.”

The narrator’s father always taught him to think about what happened after a given event. He would remind the narrator that after the school integration crisis that took place in Little Rock, Arkansas, the governor of Arkansas chose to shut down every high school in the city rather than integrate them—though this part is rarely taught. Charisma asks: “When does shit ever end?” and the narrator replies: “It doesn’t.” Foy and his supporters begin to sing “We Shall Overcome.” Like most people, they only know the first verse, so Foy uses cue cards for the lyrics of the rest. Foy then shoots a gun at his own Mercedes Benz. He then aims his gun at the narrator.

Foy then points the gun at himself, and with his free hand pours white paint over his body. The narrator sees that Foy is in a moment of extreme crisis, and cautiously tells him to ask himself two questions: “Who am I? and How may I become myself?” The narrator expects a tirade in return. Instead, Foy shoots him, and the narrator finds himself lying on the ground, clutching his own blood. Hominy attacks Foy, screaming: “Give me back my Little Rascals movies, motherfucker!” He then cradles the narrator, crying.

The paramedics arrive, and when they ask the narrator about his next of kin, he replies that he has a girlfriend but that she’s married. Hominy then announces that “I is something closer than family.” The sheriff’s deputy remarks that Hominy claims to be the narrator’s slave, and asks Hominy about his welts from being whipped. The deputy asks if the narrator has a good lawyer, and the narrator points him to an advertisement for Hampton Fiske.

The narrator tells Hampton that his farming schedule means he cannot afford to do jail time. In court, Hampton argues that as a farmer, the narrator is “an indispensable member of a minority community.” The prosecution objects that the narrator is actually an “evil genius” guilty of “unabashed slaveholding,” and that he should really be charged with “crimes against humanity.” Hampton offers Judge Nguyen a nectarine from the narrator’s farm. The judge gives a long speech; he concludes that the court will convene tomorrow but that regardless of the verdict, the case is certain to go to the Supreme Court. He takes a bite of the nectarine and sets bail at “a cantaloupe and two kumquats.”