“‘I’ll stop looking at you when you start looking at you. You’ve got to respect yourself and the folks who came before you, Citoyen. You.’ She paused. ‘Didn’t your mother, you, and I sit right here before the state competition and talk about this? What did your mother tell you?’

‘She said, “Your foolishness impacts not only Black folks today, but Black folks yet to be born.” But see, I don’t agree with my mama…’

‘There are no buts, Citoyen,’ Principal Reeves said. ‘You are history. Kids right around your age died changing history so you could go to school, so you could compete in that contest tonight, and here you are acting a fool. The day of?’”

Principal Lara Reeves challenges City Coldson’s understanding of himself and introduces the theme of the Intersection of Race, History, and Identity. Principal Reeves wants City to understand how his ancestry relates to his life in the present and how his own actions impact the future. Her words complicate City’s self-discovery journey and foreshadow the lessons he’ll learn from his experience during the Can You Use That Word in a Sentence competition.

“I looked at LaVander Peeler. He looked at me. And for the first time, his look asked me what I thought. All I could really think about was what he saw when he looked at me. I know he saw ashy hands and a wave brush. But I knew in that second that he couldn’t hate me. He didn’t have to like me, but he definitely couldn’t hate me when there was so much work for both of us to do in the next three hours. We had to show everyone, including white folks, chubby jokers with tight waves, and skinny jokers with suspect fades, just what was possible.”

The Can You Use That Word in a Sentence competition changes City’s outlook on his relationships, his culture, his history, and himself. City and LaVander’s conversation backstage before the competition particularly challenges City to consider the cultural significance of the contest and the media’s exploitation of him and his friend. In turn, City begins to relate to LaVander as an equal rather than a rival, ushering City toward personal growth. However, City still does not quite grasp his situation: He believes it’s possible to turn the competition to his advantage, but ensuing events suggest that Black Americans cannot win in a rigged system, as even an apparent victory is a defeat.