On page 167, the narrator’s father states that “you can’t force integration boy. People who want to integrate will integrate.”  This reminds me of a contrast shown in my comp gov class between de facto and de justo states- de facto states uphold certain democratic values on paper, while de justo states support the constitutional promises through active investment. In the context of the book, this questions how effective the Civil Rights movement really was- did it just accomplish de facto changes but fail to enact societal mindset regarding race?

Something I found ironic as I was reading about Hominy is that fact that the most freeing he has every felt has been acquired by his becoming (or accepting?- i don’t know) his role as a slave. What is the statement Beatty is making with Hominy (which sounds like Harmony)? Push back on me if you disagree, but I’m willing to assert that Beatty is making a comment about black peoples perception of themselves in America. Perhaps Hominy feels so free because he recognized what he is in the world/ how the world views him.

I thought one of the funniest moments in the book so far is when Foy Cheshire presents his reworked version of Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn”. In addition to altering the plot line, Foy changes the novel’s title to “The Pejorative-Free Adventures and Intellectual and Spiritual Journeys of African-American Jim and His Young Protégé, White Brother Huckleberry Finn, as They Go in Search of the Lost Black Family Unit”. I feel as though there is so much to unpack both in this title and in the fact that Foy felt the need to make these changes. For example, the emphasis on race and Foy’s need to comment on the race of each character, even within the title, is quite unusual and I think tells a lot about Foy’s character. What did you all think of this?

I have to say reading this book has been quite a roller coster. Paul Beatty’s satire is amazing- I find that the messages that underline his stories are so much more powerful because of how he delivers them.

One prime example that sticks out to me is in the beginning of the book is when the woman says “some of my best friends are monkeys.” The comparison of black people to animals allows one to step back and assess how ridiculously racist and ignorant the real statement of “some of my best friends are black” sounds. The way he dug out his point was flawless. He has clearly establishes and gets the point across that many black people have tried to argue but that has generally fallen on death ears.  Not only does the statement take on a fetishist tone, it also reveals the blatant justification people feel like they have because someone they know is black and are somehow in touched with what it means to be black in America.

This is just one of the many points in the books where the implicit message has so seamlessly be stitched out from the story.

The narrator talks about how the town of Dickens vanished quietly. There was never a story in the newspaper or anything about the matter announced. One day, it just simply was not there anymore. No one seemed to care about the occurrence and some were relieved that they no longer needed to be identified as a “Dickensian”. The narrator describes Dickens’s disappearance as a “blatant conspiracy by the surrounding, increasingly affluent, two-car-garage communities to keep their property values up and blood pressure down” (57). The way the matter quietly slipped away made me wonder, what else is not being talked about? Media controls so much of what we learn, so when a matter is blatantly hushed, we have to consider the things we aren’t hearing.

I also was very confused on the last line of this reading when Hominy tells the narrator that he has “to stop seeing us as individuals” because in doing so he is not “seeing the plantation for the niggers” (80). It seems to me that this is foreshadowing the narrator’s later decision to become the owner of slaves, but I don’t quite see the connection. What do you think he means by a plantation specifically FOR black people, and how could this lead the narrator to adopt a slave-owner mentality?

The part of the novel’s first 80 pages that stood out the most to me was the piece at the end, when Hominy makes himself the narrator’s slave and forces him to beat him. Hominy’s desire to be beaten, to be a slave, and ultimately the gratitude and relief that he feels during and following being beaten caused (and still do, to a large extent) a great deal of confusion. It did, however, remind me of the part in the Prologue wherein the narrator discusses how a black person at times is freed by the prospect of breaking the law and going to prison. The narrator says that actually doing something wrong “relieves us of the cognitive dissonance of being black and innocent” (18). Do you all think that this is somehow actually a similar situation? That by actually becoming someone’s slave, Hominy is in a way relieving himself of hidden shackles that come with black freedom? If not, can someone/anyone shed some light on Hominy’s motives behind this bizarre act?

The Sellout has an unnamed narrator which suggests that the messages conveyed in the book may be universal- however, the satirical style contradicts this theory. By using satire to exaggerate and ridicule, The Sellout establishes an outrageous storyline pointed at fostering discussion about race. The narrator may not be reliable so the reader is forced to interpret situations under his own conscience.