Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

Cam is a teenage boy from Austin who spends his summers at his grandmother’s house in Franklin, South Carolina, with his cousin, Myron. The prior summer, he finally told a girl, Jessica, that he liked her, and the two stayed in touch for a few months. However, she slowly stopped responding. Now, he has gotten a haircut and bought new shoes to impress her.

Cam and Myron drive to Tarik’s house for a party. On the way, Cam thinks of Myron’s love of musical theater and his ability to sing, dance, and act. He wants to go to college for theater if his dad will “let him.” Myron mentions that he is not even sure if Jessica is interested in guys, especially guys like Cam, a reference to the fact that guys in Franklin talk behind his back about him being an “Oreo”—a “Black boy trying to be white” (28). Cam notices that Myron says she is not interested in guys like “you”—referring to Cam—instead of guys like “us”—referring to both him and Cam. Cam notes how weird this is, given that Myron hides his love of theater and blasts rap music to fit in with the other Black kids.

At the party, the boys interact with two different groups—a group of Black kids and a group of white kids. Cam notices how Myron “code switches,” using a deeper voice and different language with the group of Black kids.

Cam spots Jessica at the party with a group of Black guys and goes over to talk to her, doing his best to “code switch” to fit in, but Jessica pulls him outside, telling him he sounds like a “fool.” Cam asks why she broke up with him, asking if it was because he was not “black enough.” She bitterly laughs at him, then explains to him that when she stopped talking to him in December, it was because she noticed how little he cared about the shooting of Linton McCants, a boy from Franklin who was killed by police. She watched his Facebook and waited for him to bring it up, but he never did. She tells Cam that, unlike him, she “lives in the real world” and “can’t just ignore stuff” that matters, like the regular killing of young Black men by police (36).

After Jessica leaves, Cam thinks about what she says. He opens Myron’s Facebook and looks through his posts, seeing that he had posted about Linton and even raised money for him, along with his posts about theater and Black men like Langston Hughes and Tupac. He sees Myron with his friends, realizing how comfortable he looks with everyone and realizing that Myron was correct to say guys like “you” and not guys like “us” in the car. Cam notes that Myron might “code switch,” but he always knows who he really is beneath it all. When Myron comes out of the party and joins Cam in the car, Cam stops him from turning on the radio and instead asks him to tell him about Linton McCants.