The Sellout

Content Warning: The Sellout contains gun violence, including the killing of a Black man by police; this section of the guide discusses the historical precedent for that act.

In Chapter 3, police officers shoot and kill Me’s dad. F. K.’s death is far from unusual. In the 2010s, the decade in which Paul Beatty published The Sellout, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement developed to draw attention to the prevalence of racially motivated violence against Black people, often committed by police. In 2012, George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch member, shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a Black teen, in Florida on his way to the house of his father’s wife. A year later, a jury found Zimmerman not guilty of murder, and three Black activists—Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi—started the hashtag #blacklivesmatter to protest the verdict. A year later, a Missouri police officer shot a Black teen, Michael Brown, and a New York City Police Officer killed a Black man, Eric Garner, with an illegal chokehold. BLM was pivotal in drawing attention to these cases, and the hashtag and movement gained global prominence.

Me arguably alludes to the need for a movement like BLM when, growing up, he tries to think of a motto that would solve “all of [B]lack America’s problems” (12).