Previously on the Quest for Cringe, we covered the Nemesis series by April Daniels, a truly dire YA superhero series about an insufferable, violent MTF troon. That series' third instalment seems to be currently in limbo, so we moved onto House of Night, a supposed-vampire series that's mostly about how everyone except the most basic-bitch Midwestern teenage girl who ever lived are untermensch, with a thick patina of misandry and anti-Christianity for flavour. The first book, Marked, took a lot out of me, and future entries only get worse, so I figure we ought to break them up with some little side-quests. Build up our strength. Let's see, we've already covered troons, and whatever you want to call House of Night's brand of neo-pagan tinged neoliberalism. What next?

Well, there's definitely isn't enough media about racial grievances in America right now, so why not spotlight some good new-fashioned noircissism? That's right, we're doing a YA book about "Blackness" with a capital b.

Let me paint you a picture. Let's pretend you're walking down the street, when you see a flyer for a racism tournament. You think "I'm on Kiwi-Farms, I'm probably more racist than the median person." You train for weeks. You spar with Brahmin expats and Nigerian doctors. You learn foreign languages just so you can use their slurs correctly. You ask Korean people about Japanese people, and remind Europeans that Gypsies are a thing. You read The Bell Curve, do deep-dives into crime statistics, and even consume media made before 2017! You listen for hours at your grandfather's feet---and this ain't some sixty-something, nice-guy liberal granddad whose parents told them stories about the Civil Rights Movement. No, your granddad somehow fought for the Confederacy, despite being Australian (yeah, you're Australian in this hypothetical, FYI) and considers marriage between Swedes and Norwegians to be unforgivable miscegenation.

The day of the competition comes. You blitz through your opponents, making it all the way to finals. Then the other finalist announces herself as an anti-racist.

You're out in the first round.

That's basically SLAY, the YA debut of Brittney Murphy, someone I had to assure multiple people I showed this book to was black. At least on critic described as "Ready Player One meets Black Panther." Apparently this was meant to be positive. I know, I'm shocked too.


This is one of those books where I feel it's good to bring up the cover:


Yes, I do tend to pick books that can knock you unconscious or kill you for these threads, but that's not why I'm posting this. So, SLAY, aside from being cringe as fuck, refers to the VR game that's the focus of the book. It's full of lush vistas and outlandish character designs. People who actually think "solarpunk" is a thing might call it "afrofuturist." Should probably provide plenty of inspiration for cover-art, right? Apparently not, because all the artist (assuming this isn't just a photo put through a filter, which I'm guessing it is) or the publishers thought they needed to communicate to prospective readers about this book was that it had a black girl in it.

Start as you mean to continue.

To everyone who has ever had to minimize who you are to be palatable to those who aren’t like you

Click to expand...

Aside from being a archetypal leftist meme of a dedication, I'm pretty sure that describes everyone who's ever lived at one point or another.

By day, I’m an honors student at Jefferson Academy. At night, I turn into the Nubian goddess most people know as Emerald.

Click to expand...

"But enough about my stripper persona."

The second the bell rings, I’m out of my desk seat and bolting through the classroom door. There’s a battle tonight between PrestoBox, a master wizard from the Tundra, and Zama, a Voodoo queen from the same region. I absolutely can’t miss it. Once safely in the hallway, I pull out my phone and open WhatsApp to find a new text from the game mod, Cicada.


Cicada: You watching the tundra semifinals tonight?

Click to expand...

Given how woke this book is, the fact the main character dared include a "Vodoo queen" as a class is quite suprising.

“Hey, Kix!” comes Harper’s voice, startling me from my thoughts. I look up to see her and my sister, Steph, walking toward me in their matching pink T-shirts with the Greek letters for Beta Beta Psi, a collective of the eight most outspoken, unapologetic, woke feminists at Jefferson Academy.

Click to expand...

Woke feminists are like pacifist assassins: useless at the one thing you need them for.

Leave it to my parents to transfer us to a high school that prepares its students for college so thoroughly, they claim to have the most robust high school Greek life program in the country.

Click to expand...

I refuse to believe there are actual high-school Greek societies. Consider this entry #1 in our "The main character should probably have been a university student" series.

“Hey, Harp. Hey, Steph,” I say, trying not to sound disappointed that I won’t get out of here for another ten minutes. I slip my phone into my back pocket and put on my best happy to see you face.
“Hey, Kiera,” Steph says with a grin, brushing her bangs out of the way of her lime-green glasses. Steph has a new pair of cheap plastic glasses for each day of the week, and her hair is always pressed straight and cut neatly at her shoulders. She insists keeping her hair straight saves time in the morning, but until she can prove it, I’ll keep my five-minute wake-up-and-shake-out-my-twist-out routine.

Click to expand...

Because this is a book about black kids that came out in 2019, naturally it almost immediately launches into a weirdly defensive bit about hair. Seriously, there are literally dozens of picture-books out there about how great and special black people's hair is. There was a New York Times article about how horse-riding helmets are supposedly incompatible with black-riders, as though that's not the most bougie, niche complaint in the entire universe. It's not even that I think curly or nappy hair is ugly, and I know that black people have been ridiculed for their hair throughout history, but who in Current Year 2019 is getting turned down for a job or suspended from school for not straightening their hair? I refuse to believe the only demographic to rival drag-queens and troons for wig purchases is that confident in their natural hair.

Harper wants to ask Kiera some advice:

“It feels kind of weird to even be asking this question, but I’m asking because I genuinely don’t know the answer.”


I sigh and nod at her to just ask the question already. She always prefaces these with a disclaimer if it’s going to be one of those questions with two wrong answers. She didn’t used to be like this. When we were kids, Harper used to come over our house for Mario Kart, Legacy of Planets, and snacks. We used to talk about Usher and Fresh Prince, and boys in our class, and babysit her little brother, Wyatt. But now Steph is president of Beta Beta, and Harper is VP, and as royalty of the most feminist high school sorority in the country, Harper acts like she has to talk about polarizing stuff all the time.

Click to expand...

I like the tacit acknowledgement that woke brainworms actively prevent black and white people from getting along. Also, Kiera and Harper are meant to be about seventeen, or maybe eighteen. Assuming this is set the year it came out, they would've been born in about 2001. How likely is it they'd have been super into Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as little kids?

Okay, fine,” says Harper when it becomes apparent Steph isn’t going anywhere. “I was thinking about changing my hair. Something fun and new, but, like, with bohemian vibes. There’s one style I really want to get, but I need to ask you about it first.”

Click to expand...

"Because you are of the priestly class!"

Steph and I exchange looks again. When it comes to hair discussions, Steph and I have been on the Black girl hair journey together, and we have more in common than she and Harper ever will in the hair department. But I look back up at Harper, with her short blond pixie that hasn’t held a curl since middle school prom, when her mother had to use half a can of hair spray. She’s the only person I know who can rock a pixie like that, and since she stands about a foot taller than me with a long, willowy frame, it fits her. But I let her finish her question.

Click to expand...

Yeah, this is one of those American works that capitalise "Black" supposedly because African-Americans are supposedly a distinct, unified culture on par with say, Japanese or French people. Yes, northern, southern, East Coast, West Coast, the descendants of slaves or the children of doctors from Nigeria, all the same thing. We don't capitalise "white" though, because white people don't have a culture. Except for this set of values posted for some time in the Smithsonian:




Who knew "planning from the future" and "objectivity" were exclusively white things! Also, black America, famously not very into Christianity. I assume all those gospel songs were about Papa Legba.


Yeah, like "vampyre" over in House of Night, this is not a convention we'll be adhering to.

“I need to, like, ask you, though, and don’t be afraid to say no,” she begins. “Am I allowed to get dreadlocks?”
Oh, what a question. Is she allowed to get dreadlocks? She’s asking permission to wear a hairstyle that’s been debated by people of many races for years and years as to whether it’s appropriating Black culture. How am I supposed to tell her yes without giving the disclaimer that I can’t speak for all Black people, and that she could ask any of us this question and get a different answer every time?

Click to expand...

We're not even past page 2, and we've already had a white girl come crawling to her black friend for permission to style her hair, and Kiera's response is to lament the heavy burden placed on her shoulders, and not ask why the fuck Harper thinks she needed to ask in the first place. The problem with a lot of conservative critiques of woke want it to be about libertinism or hedonism or anything else where people have too much fun for their own good, rather than another tight-lipped, scolding church they're competing with.

“That’d make a great question for the Weekly!” chimes in Wyatt, stepping between Steph and me, leaning his arm on her shoulder and grinning at me. Nobody would guess by their looks that Harper and Wyatt are brother and sister. And by Wyatt’s freckles, bright blue eyes, messy dishwater-blond hair, lanky frame, and lack of height, nobody would guess he’s sixteen, and not twelve.

Click to expand...

I normally wouldn't bat an eyelid at that description, but a lot has been written about how black kids are often perceived by white people to be older than they actually are. Given the role Wyatt will play in this book, I can't help but wonder if this is the author trying to turn that on its head, and call white boy underdeveloped twerps. I fucking hate how this book makes me think like a racial paranoiac as well.

“Seriously, Kiera, can I interview you about this?” Wyatt asks with that big, toothy grin. Even though he’s only a junior, he’s chief editor for the Jefferson Weekly, and he runs the political topics column like a criminal investigator, hyperanalyzing his interviewees’ answers, looking for cracks in their views so he can write them up with those clickbaity titles he always uses. I can see it now: “Black People Don’t Mind White People Wearing This ONE Hairstyle.”

Click to expand...

How dare this aspiring student journalist be incisive and analytical! Didn't he see the Smithsonian chart? Those are white supremacy.

Between Wyatt as chief editor for the school newspaper even though he’s only a junior, and Steph, also a junior, as president of Beta Beta Psi, I feel like my college applications could have been so much more resplendent than they were when I submitted them. If only I could include my favorite after-school activity in my list of accomplishments.

Click to expand...

"And if want to know why I can't, shut up."

“You can interview me!” offers Steph, and I can’t help but smile a bit. There’s no way Wyatt’s going to go for that. Steph is an expert debater who gives airtight answers to any question you ask her.

Click to expand...

Because being good at high-school debate always means you know shit about the real world.

“We all know what you think about white people doing things, Steph,” says Wyatt. “You tell us all the goddamn time.”


Steph punches his arm so hard, he flinches and holds it close to him.


“Really?” he asks.


“I mean, if you’re going to assume I’m going to be an angry Black woman about this, I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”

Click to expand...

Wyatt is best boy.

“Steph,” I say, shaking my head. She’s talking too loud in this hallway, and people are looking at us now. The last thing the only two Black girls at Jefferson Academy need is to be seen as the loud ones.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you wouldn't want to get called Karen--wait.

“I’ll have to think about that, Harper,” I say, hoping she’ll wait awhile and maybe forget about it.


“Okay,” she says, obviously disappointed, folding her arms over her chest. “Oh, we’re still on for math at eight tonight, right?”


Oh shit. It’s Thursday. I had to move Harper’s and my tutoring lesson to Thursday this week since Wyatt is playing in the Civil War baseball game next week and Steph and Harper need time tomorrow when they’re both available to write their opening speech as president and VP of Beta Beta.

Click to expand...

I don't know what a Civil War baseball game is, but I assume if Wyatt wins, Kiera has to be his slave till the next one. Or Calamity will have to reveal her secret identity, which would be a shame.

But I do need the money. Cicada and I want to add more RAM to our servers because we’re about to launch more game cards soon. That’s sixty bucks down the drain if I cancel this week.

Click to expand...

This explanation is going to seem very insufficient shortly.

“Uh,” I begin. When I say I absolutely can’t miss the Tundra Semifinals today, I mean it. I need to be there. The game gets bugs sometimes. Weird stuff starts happening when people try to hack in coins or trade new weapons. Lately, characters have been glitching out when they use a new crossbow that was released last week—falling through the map or losing upgrades—and when that happens, everyone blows up my DMs. Why?


Because I’m the game developer.


Nobody knows. Not even my family. Not even my boyfriend, Malcolm.

Click to expand...

Yeah, Kiera basically runs a Triple A scale MMORPG with the help of one other chick, while being an overachieving high-school senior. I bet the Hannah Montana theme is already playing in your heads. This is of course fucking insane, but I find it almost charmingly retro. It's the kind of absurd power-fantasy you saw back when House of Night was still sort of a big deal. Like if I wrote a YA book about a teenage girl who's secretly President of the United States. Yes, I remember the comic, Prez.

“Pretty sure my queen is busy tonight,” comes a familiar voice from behind me. Two strong arms encircle my waist and kisses are being planted gently up the back of my neck, and I can smell Malcolm’s Ralph Lauren cologne behind me.


“Hey,” I say happily, looking up to see the progress he’s making with his goatee, smiling when I see he had his dreads freshly twisted this weekend, his Killmonger hairdo. I cuddle up under his arm. Normally, I would call him Boo, but I feel weird using that word in front of everyone here.

Click to expand...

Consider the Killmonger hairdo foreshadowing. No, Malcolm isn't going to launch a genocidal crusade against all non-blacks, that'd at least be exciting. Although, it's possible Kiera might be part Halloween decoration, so there's that.

“Aaaand, that’s my cue to go!” announces Steph, turning on her heel and heading swiftly for the front door.


I have to physically concentrate on not rolling my eyes. Steph and Malcolm hate each other for the pettiest reasons. Malcolm thinks Black women don’t need sororities because they’re already sisters, and the word “sorority” is a fancy word for clique.

Click to expand...

He is correct.

Steph thinks men have no business telling women what to do. That leaves me in the chasm in the middle, agreeing with both of them.

Click to expand...

They're both right, but Malcolm more so--a high school sorority is in fact stupid.

“Right,” says Wyatt, glancing over his shoulder, probably to make sure Steph is far enough away not to hear him. “Soooo, just let me know about the interview, okay?”
I look up at Malcolm, whose thick eyebrows have sunken slightly.
“What kinda interview?” he asks.
“Wyatt wants to interview me for the Jefferson Weekly,” I say quickly, hoping Wyatt catches my hints. “It’s about Black hair. I think Wyatt’s trying to give diverse opinions some visibility in the paper.”
Malcolm motions to Wyatt with his chin and says, “ ’Bout time we had more diverse opinions in the Weekly. Okay, Wyatt, I see you.”

Click to expand...

Which means, in Malcolm-speak, “well done.”

Click to expand...

You can tell Malcolm isn't going to have a bright future in this book, because he welcomes the idea of debate in the press.

Malcolm teases Kiera for being... overly-diplomatic I guess once the other two are gone:

He leans in and kisses my forehead before pressing his forehead against mine.


“I want you to be yourself around me, and around them. I want my Black goddess all the time, but you out here sounding like you work in a call center.”

Click to expand...

I've never been a black teenage girl (and even by Current Year standards, I could only be two of those things if I wanted to be) but if my boyfriend made a habit of calling me a "Black goddess" I'd assume he had a White Goddess on the side, and then team-up with Robert Graves for revenge.

I wish I could invite Malcolm into my world after school, into my game, where every word I speak reflects the Black goddess he sees in me, the one he got to see at Belmont, the one who rocked braids and almost made the Belmont High drill team. The walls may have been defaced with vandalism, and the lockers may have been falling apart, but at least we got to be ourselves.

Click to expand...

"Our old school might've been a dangerous shithole, but at least I got to be more of a stereotype."

I'm not making the dangerous part up, by the way:

I smile up at him now. He has a scar in the middle of his bottom lip from the fight that got him expelled from Belmont—the fight that might have gotten me hurt if he hadn’t intervened.

Click to expand...

This is literally a kid whining about how she has to go to a clean, safe school instead of the place she nearly got assaulted, because it was more "street."

I step up on my tiptoes and kiss that scar. Malcolm and I left Belmont together after freshman year, and Steph joined us. I left so many of our Black friends there, and I appreciate Malcolm doing his best to make sure I don’t leave my Blackness there with them.

Click to expand...

"Blackness" meaning getting into fights and urban decay?

f he knew about SLAY, if he’d just give the game a chance, he might realize just how proud I am of us. But I can see the whole conversation now. He’d ask me why I’ve poured so much effort into a video game when I could be focusing on college prep and getting a good job, so I don’t join what he is constantly reminding me of: the mass of Black people who waste their lives on video games, junk food, drugs, unemployment, baby daddy drama, and child support. According to him, video games are distractions promoted by white society to slowly erode the focus and ambition of Black men. He wouldn’t understand.

Click to expand...

Which is why white people don't play them. Or maybe Malcolm thinks Def Jam: Fight for NY is the only video game. Malcolm is clearly a huge Hotep, but he seems to be more interested in the material conditions of black people in America than culture war bullshit, so naturally, the book doesn't like him much.

I bite my lip and smile. Malcolm is fine as hell, and he knows I know it. We’re lucky—his parents don’t care what he does or where he goes, and my parents don’t mind giving us privacy at the house, since they’d rather we be there than at “some drunken party,” as Mom puts it.
Not sure what kinds of drunken parties she thinks are going down here at Jefferson. If people are throwing them, Malcolm and I are never invited.

Click to expand...

Is the implication that Malcolm's parents are neglectful? Because if so, him going to this well-to-do charter school seems odd.

“I have homework,” I say. It’s not a complete lie. I do have homework. There’s a math test next week on polynomials that’s going to kick my ass if I don’t get it together and start studying.


“Can I help?”


He knows damn well if he came over, we wouldn’t be studying anything but each other.


“It’s American history,” I lie. His least favorite subject. It’s the only way to keep him away from the house while I immerse myself in the game. As far as Malcolm is concerned, American history is white history, and therefore antiBlack.

Click to expand...

And I'm sure Kiera's opinions are that much different.

“You actually study for that shit?”


“I study so my final transcript doesn’t disappoint Spelman. Even if they admit me, if my final grades are too low and they change their mind, Atlanta won’t be a thing for us.”


That’s it, Kiera, I think, guilt-trip him.


“Fine, whatever.” He shrugs. “I’ve got some decolonizing to do anyway. S’called The 48 Laws of Power. Robert Greene. You heard of it?”


By “decolonizing,” he means reading. Knowing Malcolm, the book is written by a Black man about Black men getting their education, starting their own businesses, becoming the heads of households, and raising gorgeous little Black children with their gorgeous Black queens. Malcolm’s happily ever after. He’ll stay up all night reading books like that. I can’t complain about it, though—there’s something sexy about a strong, stoic boy who reads a lot. But he only reads books by Black men, Black women who edify Black men, and white men who reinforce his non-race-related philosophies, leaving me to keep my Cline and Le Guin to myself.

Click to expand...

Le Guin deserves more than being used for cheap good-girl points in a shit YA book. Also, what kind of Hotep reads white authors of any sort?

I laugh at the irony of all those conversation-ending texts I get saying he’s going to go “decolonize,” leaving me to play SLAY uninterrupted.

Click to expand...

How is that ironic?

I roll my eyes, but his game is working. My whole body is screaming to let him come over tonight. The duel starts in fifteen minutes, which means it might be over by the time he reaches my house. That should give us a couple of hours together before Mom gets home. Just because my parents are lax about us having sex in the house doesn’t mean we want them hearing us.

Click to expand...

I'm surprised Malcolm isn't saving his vital fluids in case Yakub steals them to make more white babies.

And he winks and turns away, shrinking farther and farther down the hall among the rest of the students clustered in groups to gossip before whatever after-school clubs they might have. I sigh, wishing so badly that I could invite him into the game with me. His attitude and curiosity would make him an expert dueler. I don’t know if I’ll ever convince him that SLAY is different. To him, video games may be a distraction from becoming great, but I meant for it to do the exact opposite: to showcase how awesome we are as Black people, how multifaceted, resilient, and colorful we are. And I’ve tried hypothetical questions with him, like What if someone made a game that was just for Black people? but he doesn’t even entertain the idea. “They make things ‘just for us’ all the time—we’ve got Black movies and Black History Month. They give us our own shit to distract us from the fact that we don’t have control over their shit. Separate is not equal. That doesn’t even come close to leveling the field.”

Click to expand...

I'm sure Malcolm is meant to be complaining that redheads are still sometimes seen in movies and films, but... based?

My house is just down the street from the school, so I walk home most days. It gets annoying sometimes, living so close. Game days make traffic on our street a nightmare.


But I can’t complain about the neighborhood. Bellevue, Washington, is one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever seen, in real life or on TV. Perfectly manicured trees line every public sidewalk, like they do at Disneyland, and I haven’t seen a pothole since we moved here from SoDo—that’s “south downtown”—three years ago, when Dad got promoted. Lucky for me, it happened shortly after Malcolm got expelled, and I got to follow him out here to Jefferson, which I love and hate. I love that I can charge these kids sixty dollars a session to tutor them in math. It’s a nice addition to my résumé, and it gives me extra cash to spend on RAM, server maintenance, and in-game artwork. But I hate, and I mean hate, being “the voice of Blackness” here.

Click to expand...

Which is why you seem to expect people to get planning permission for their hair.

At Belmont, where 50 percent of the students are Black, and 70 percent are people of color, Malcolm and I got to be normal. Nobody was asking to touch my twist-out, nobody was asking him about his locs, and nobody was asking us for permission to appropriate Black culture as if we’re the authority for our entire race.

Click to expand...

Okay, do people actually ask to touch black people's hair, let alone try to touch it without permission? Because trust me, I have never seen anyone past the age of three be interested in touching someone's hair, no matter what race they are.

I reach our little gray house at the end of the cul-de-sac that caps Newberg Lane. It’s smaller than most of the houses on this street, but it still doesn’t feel like home. Not like our home in SoDo anyway. This new house has two obnoxious white pillars on either side of the front door, and a wreath, and a peephole.


I notice a new decoration on the porch—a stuffed rabbit doll made of pink tube socks, sticks, and various brightly colored plastic eggs. That wasn’t here when I left for school this morning. Mom is clearly home early, and in a decorating mood, which means she’s going to ask me for help. Good thing I didn’t invite Malcolm over.

Click to expand...

For the Easter Bunny was created to keep down the black man.

I carefully untie my shoes and carry them with me into the kitchen, where I keep my shoe toothbrush in the pen drawer, so nobody will confuse it for a mouth toothbrush. I don’t know why I’m so particular about keeping my white shoes white. They’re just Keds. Not like they’re a pair of two-hundred-dollar Yeezys a lot of other Jefferson kids have. But it still irks me when they get dirty.

Click to expand...

I am genuinely curious what is it with black people (or maybe Americans in general) with sneakers.

I find Mom and Steph sitting at the dining table, which always has eight place mats and a seasonal centerpiece, just in case Mom ever wants to throw a spontaneous dinner party. Although with her new schedule at the dental clinic, I doubt she’ll ever really have time.

Click to expand...

Do make a note of Kiera's mother being a dentist.

“Hey!” exclaims Steph. She looks up at me through new red glasses—apparently, she’s already bored of the green ones she was wearing earlier. These ones are as big around as baseballs, with the lenses punched out. Mine are boring black frames, with prescription lenses. Simple.

Click to expand...

Like all Puritans, Kiera disdains frivolity.

“You expecting someone? Maybe a certain someone? A certain Hotep whose name I won’t mention?”


She calls Malcolm a Hotep, which, in her mind, is a brotha who claims he’s for Black power, when he’s really for Black male power, homophobia, misogyny, and other regressive ideologies. I say as long as Malcolm is encouraging our people to do better, and me to do better, I can’t complain, even if he says a few off-color things every so often. He may not “get” feminism all the way yet, but he’s a work in progress.

Click to expand...

Here we see the central tension of the book. Kiera and Malcolm both basically advocate for a kind of neo-segregationism, but Malcom's brand of black separatism alienates other members of the woke coalition with its social conservatism, therefore, he is the enemy.

I deflect her question. “Jealousy ain’t cute, Steph.”


“Don’t say ain’t in my house,” says Mom with raised brows.


I made “Ain’t” a card in the game, since Ebonics is part of what differentiates the American Black experience from American “other” experiences. It’s ours. And I’ll use the word “ain’t” however I please as soon as I log in.

Click to expand...

Aren't white southerners also quite fond of the expression? A lot of this book comes across as deep desperation to avoid admitting that black people are in fact, American.

But my mom’s raised eyebrows ain’t playing. “Boo-Boo the Fool” is another card in the game. It’s a Battle card, since “Do I look like Boo-Boo the Fool?” is a rhetorical question that essentially translates to “I wasn’t born yesterday.” It’s a challenge to say something else and see what happens, and so are raised eyebrows, which is why the card features an artistic rendition of my mom’s. But as long as my mom still feels the need to “correct” Ebonics, like when we say words like “ain’t,” she’ll never see the card, or the game. She’d just be disappointed.

Click to expand...

Real-talk here, I have nothing against ebonics or whatever. I've heard black people speak like that and come across perfectly erudite. But notice that Kiera's mother can't just be in the wrong for being overly controlling about something harmless. It has to be part of the Struggle.

It’s not that I don’t get why she does it. She doesn’t want us to walk into a job interview one day with “Ay, bruh, I ain’t got much ’sperience, but I’ma do what I gotta do to get the job done, you feel me, cuz?” but Steph and I know how to alternate. It’s like speaking two different languages. One when I’m home, FaceTiming Malcolm, and one when I’m at Jefferson, blending in. I can do both flawlessly. But some nagging fear in the back of my mom’s mind thinks that if she doesn’t snuff out every “finna” and “talmbout” and “I’on,” Steph and I will be forever unemployable, and every dime she’s spent at Jefferson will go down the drain.

Click to expand...

See, there is a point here, but pretending it's unique to the black experience is disingenuous. Yes, people who talk like that will be passed over for jobs and opportunities, but so will someone who talks like an Appalachian trapper, because both those dialects are associated with poverty. This is where Twitter calls me a dirtbag class-reductionist for daring to suggest poor white and poor black people might have something in common.

“Yes, Mom,” I say, pulling my phone out and stealing a glance at the screen. A new text from Malcolm.
Malcolm: See you tomorrow. Until then, listen to this and miss me.
He attached a new song by the Weeknd—that one that was nice and slow that I suggested we make love to.

Click to expand...

There's something oddly disarming about how offhandedly this book mentions Kiera being sexually active. Not because it's gross or inappropriate--teenagers do in fact have sex sometimes--but trust me, modern YA is terrified of sex, at least when it's heterosexual. Steph shows off her new novelty glasses. Their mother is horrified they've been repaired with scotch-tape.

“But Scotch tape, Steph? Really,” says Mom. “You could find a nice new pair on Amazon that doesn’t look so . . .”
Steph leans back against her chair and folds her arms over her chest, challenging Mom to finish the sentence.
“Tacky,” says Mom. I know she’s avoiding the word “ghetto,” after Steph’s lecture to the family last week about how “ghetto” is just a derogatory code word for innovative.

Click to expand...

...I imagine the people who actually have to live in the ghetto beg to differ.

“I just don’t want those kids at Jefferson ostracizing you and your sister.”


Too late for that.


“I get it, Mom,” replies Steph. “But I genuinely don’t care. If I wear red tape-covered glasses, quote lyrics from The Chronic regularly, and speak in AAVE, and that’s enough to get me ostracized, it’s going to happen no matter what I do.”

Click to expand...

You ever notice wokes still let rap be vulgar and hateful. These two are the wokest black people ever, and apparently they have no problem with Dre telling Eazy E to eat a dick every other line. Maybe Steph got a weird rep for rapping "Bitches Ain't Shit" in the middle of class.

Okay, I have to ask. “What’s AAVE?”


“Oh, please don’t get her started,” sighs Mom, looking up at me like I just asked Steph to recite the Gettysburg Address for us.

Click to expand...

God, imagine being these kids' mother. Stop lecturing her how to be black, Steph, she's been at it way longer than you have!

“No, Mom, this is important. Kiera needs to hear this. It stands for African American Vernacular English, and—”


“Actually,” I say, glancing back at my phone. It’s already 3:08. I have seven minutes to log in. “Sorry I asked. I need to get to studying. Biology exam tomorrow.”


I turn to leave through the kitchen just as Steph launches into, “Okay, we’ll talk later, though, right? This is important!” at a thousand decibels, after which comes a swift shhhhhhh from Mom to remind her not to yell in the house.

Click to expand...

Is it possible for "being black" to be someone's autistic special interest?

When I get to my room, I lock the door and run to my computer chair. When I log in, there are 641 new DMs in my SLAY inbox. That’s the name of the game—SLAY. It’s not an acronym, although that’s always the first question of anyone who joins, and people have been offering suggestions for acronyms ever since its launch. It’s a double entendre, meaning both “to greatly impress” and “to annihilate.”

Click to expand...

So, this book is ostensibly meant for black kids to read and relate to. How interesting are they going to find having their own slang explained to them? Assuming they can see through the tears of laughter that this book is called Slay.

I thought the name was more than appropriate for a turn-based VR card game where players go head-to-head in card duels using elements of Black culture.

Click to expand...

Deeply shit sentence structure. Like, the idea is clear, it's called Slay because black people, hur hur. But what does that have to do with the card stuff? Most of the sentence is superfluous to the point it's trying to make.

Steph would love it if she ever knew about it. Or if she knew I was the developer. But for all the confidence I have in my sister, one thing she absolutely can’t do is keep a secret. And on top of that, her constant jabs at Malcolm make me wonder if she’d get the game. There are players from all over the world, all walks of life, many who grew up poor like Malcolm, regularly “decolonize” like Malcolm, and surround themselves with specific kinds of Black influences, like Malcolm. I don’t know if I can share SLAY with her, because I don’t know if she’ll accept it— all of it. Not without overthinking it. So I won’t. Probably not ever.

Click to expand...

Okay, maybe I'm missing something about American school systems, but how is Malcolm able to attend to Jefferson High if he's poor. Is it a private school, or a public one and his family edged into the catchment area?

Kiera seems to be keeping the biggest thing in her life a secret from everyone she loves because they might have some criticisms of it. How very Gen Z.

I roll my eyes at the willful ignorance and glance at the clock. Five minutes till duel. I’ll read the rest of the messages later. I unlock the bottom drawer of my desk and pull out my headphones, and the gray VR socks, gloves, and goggles my family doesn’t know I bought.

Click to expand...

VR gear is relatively expensive, right? Seems like having all this be required would exclude a lot of black players. Oh, there's me bringing class into it again.

My heart pounds as I slip them on. I can’t wait until I go off to Spelman so I can play with a noise-canceling headset. For now, I have to listen for my mom yelling through the door that it’s dinnertime, so I can say five more minutes and deflect suspicion.

Click to expand...

At least be keeping a respectable secret from your parents, like vampirism, or being a masked vigilante.

I get up and stand in the middle of my room so I don’t knock anything over. All I keep in my room are my bunk bed with the sofa on the bottom, my bookcase, my dresser, my pouf, my desk in the corner by the door. When it comes to VR, the less furniture around me, the safer. Come on, come on, I urge as the map fills the screen. It’s nighttime in this region—the Tundra—so the navy skybox is up, almost black, peppered with shimmering stars. I look up and around at them all, and suddenly I miss all those summer nights Malcolm and I used to lie in my backyard in SoDo and watch what little of the night sky the city smog would leave us. Nights when we got to shut out the rest of the world and just be ourselves, swapping music, talking about which Black genius’s opinions he was reading that day. I captured several of his favorites in SLAY—Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Langston Hughes.

Click to expand...

Maya Angelou? I thought Malcolm only read guy authors, Keira?!

left my character, Emerald, here in the Tundra so it would be easier to get to the duel. The snowy mountains contrast nicely against the sky, spiking upward in a basin all around me. I raise my hand to slide the virtual keyboard from the right side of the screen, type Fairbanks Arena using the holographic keys, point my left hand to the north, and pull my trigger finger, allowing me to teleport at light speed. New players might think I named the arena after Fairbanks, Alaska, but the information panel would tell them I actually named it after Mabel Fairbanks, one of the first Black professional figure skaters.

Click to expand...

Black people in the tundra sounds like the setup for an off-colour joke. Or maybe just Cool Runnings. There better be some Cool Runnings references here. Why else would you put a snow level in Black People Land?

Mountains zoom past me. I smile, impressed at how good they look up close. I was having a fantastic day when I created the Tundra. The textures are flawless—smooth and realistic. The snow looks fluffy up close. Every mountain looks hand-painted, thanks to donated art from a few indie artists who SLAY.

Click to expand...

Piss off! "Oh, some artists who liked my game just provided me assets on par with a major studio." Real-talk here, I'm actually working with an artist to illustrate my first book, and if I asked her to "donate" some art, she'd cut my nuts off! Which ironically would probably make it easier for me to land a lit-agent, but still!

I built the arena itself entirely of diamonds, because I could, and because a diamond arena in an icy region is hella dope. It’s one of the biggest, too. It can hold three million people, since I hope one day the game gets that big.
For now, chat reads over a hundred thousand logged-in people out of the five hundred thousand people with SLAY accounts, which is still a lot for a single duel, even if it’s the semifinal round of a tournament, but I guess it’s prime time for people my age to be online, at least here on the West Coast.

Click to expand...

Remember, this game is the afterschool and weekend project one one high-schooler. And no, as far as I can tell, this doesn't take place in the near-future where AI can do most of the work.

Also, this game has five-hundred thousand players. How are we supposed to believe no white people have heard of it? Hell, how do Keira and Cicada even check all these people are black? Do you have to send your 23&Me results? Photo-ID? Do they use blockchain?

...Blackchain?

I’m close enough to see the people forming a line into the arena now. I slow my pace and I’m flying smoothly over all the attendees. Most players choose to be either royalty or characters with special powers or weapons.

Click to expand...

As opposed to the many gamers who choose to make their characters chronically-ill dirt-farmers?

A woman in bone armor notices me and takes a fighting stance. Her unnaturally large boobs and red headband around her enormous Afro make her look like a Mortal Kombat character.


Text appears above her head. “I hope you got my message, Emerald. We meet at dawn.”


Everyone says, “We meet at dawn.” It’s how we say, “I challenge you to a duel at a later time.” In fact, it’s become an identifier in the real world. About a year ago, kids in the grocery store started coming up to me and asking, “Did you thaw the meat?” or “Did you get the meat?” or “Do you eat meat?” and after some perusing in chat, I realized it’s a coded question. They ask pretty much any question involving meat, to which I’m supposed to reply, “We meet at dawn” if I want them to know I SLAY.

Click to expand...

Yes, readers at home, this is a book about a secret Yu-Gi-Oh Illuminati for black people, which granted sounds like an amazing Key and Peele sketch.

When Reddit first launched, it was so secretive that Redditors in real life used to ask the highly conspicuous question “When does the narwhal bacon?” but I like our version better. It’s more covert. “Did you thaw the meat?” is a totally normal question to ask. “When does the narwhal bacon?” will make people ask, “WTF are you Internet kids up to?” which is exactly what I don’t want to happen. I know there are SLAYers who are just like me—who live one way during the day at work or school, and would rather their nonBlack classmates or coworkers not know they live completely differently online. Completely authentically.

Click to expand...

Because white people could never understand playing a character in a video-game. I'm guessing we're using "authentic" in the same way troons do, where it has nothing to do with who you actually are, and instead what you pretend to be.

I walk past the woman in bone armor and spot a character in a dark gray hooded robe that extends about thirty feet behind him. He’s wielding a katana in each hand and has the words JUSTICE FOR TRAYVON written across the back of his robe in bloodred. Not going to lie, his outfit is pretty legit

Click to expand...

Please, Trayvon Martin is so last season. We've had what, four black martyrs since then?

The minute I step through the front door, having to duck just to fit into the arena, the people in the stands roar to life. I look up and around the arena in awe. The stands reach so high into the rafters that I can’t see the top on account of the light from the moon, which is directly above us in the night sky. Characters jump and scream, waving veils and scarves and jangling bracelets and jewelry. Anything to attract my attention. I can’t stop looking around. Everyone’s configured their characters to be different shades, from Zendaya to Lupita, and I am living for it.

Click to expand...

Rashida Jones is sad. If the player base for this game is anything like who I imagine this tripe, I'm guessing most of these people are actually white lady childrens librarians and Goodreads users. I look forward to when they unzip their disguises like the end of The Wiz.

here’s forehead jewelry and face paint, flowers, feathers, beads, glitter, Afros the size of small vehicles and braids as long and thick as pythons. I spot dashikis, Mursi lip plates, otjize clay, Ulwaluko blankets, Marley twists, Michael Jackson’s glove, and a man in a purple cape twice as tall as me in the front row who’s trying a little too hard to be Prince. And this splendor, this orchestra of Black magnificence, extends all the way up to the ceiling, beyond my vision.

Click to expand...

Funny how it's not cultural appropriation when a black person three hundred years removed from Africa just cram whatever shit they want into their game.

Steph would cry tears of joy if she could see this.


To make my way up the steps to the middle of the arena, I march my VR-socked feet against my rug—the rug I asked for last Christmas to cover up the sound of me dueling.

Click to expand...

"I got the money for my full body VR gear by prostitution."

What? it's as good an explanation as any.

“Welcome, kings and queens,” the text above my head reads. I wish I could use a mic, but there’s no way I’d be able to keep up the whole “secret identity” thing in a house with walls this thin.

Click to expand...

It's almost as though this whole thing is stupid. At least Hannah Montana's dad knew she was a pop-singer.

I’ve seen Zama duel before. She must be a professional martial artist in real life, with access to an entire gymnasium of space, because she can flip across the whole arena and roundhouse-kick her opponents clean out of the ring. Once, in the Rain Forest region, I saw her leap into the air, grab a vine that was hanging in a loop above the arena, and ninja-kick her opponent hard enough to knock six hundred points off the board in a single blow. Her agility and mastery of the cards earned her immediate popularity in SLAY, and now that she’s climbed the ranks to the top of the Tundra warriors roster, her fans have crossed over from a fan base to a cult following.

Click to expand...

So this game not only requires extensive VR equipment, but favours players who both have exceptional athletic conditioning and access to loads of space to play? This is the most exclusive woke game I've ever seen. It's like if Baldur's Gate 3 had means testing during installation. Also, isn't this a fucking card game? Isn't this like if if in Magic the Gathering, you could also just jump onto the table and kick the shit out of the other player to win?

Please welcome PrestoBox!”


More applause and booing as I gesture to the Eastern Gate, where a black disk emerges and slides across the floor. It’s like a shadow, but with nothing creating it. It slides right up the steps, headed straight for me. Just as I think it’s going to stop, it slides underneath me. I glance over my shoulder as it emerges from under my sparkly green train and stops beside me. The cheering hasn’t stopped, and it hums louder as a mountain of black lumps rises slowly from the disk, which is shrinking. The lumps slowly take shape into shoulders and a head. Then a face forms—one with a Guy Fawkes mask and a black Zorro hat—they look a bit like No Face from Spirited Away.

Click to expand...

Actual Asian people are no doubt kept out of SLAY with highly subjective personal essay questions.

Presto has been accused of hacking because they’ve discovered spells so rare that Cicada was convinced nobody would ever figure them out. To create a spell in SLAY, you have to find specific ingredients, combine them in your inventory in a specific order to make a spell base, and enter codes to add certain qualities to the spell so you can actually use it. Presto managed to unlock a spell that allows you to fly—or more accurately, hover—and everyone flipped out and assumed that since no one had seen it before, it couldn’t be real. But it’s very real. To get it, you have to combine a Pink Crystal from the Tundra region, an Ostrich Feather from the Savanna region, and a rare Foxblood Flower from the Forest region. Then you have to find four numbers on the back of a framed photo in one of the pyramids in the Desert region and enter them into the spell code box backward. Cicada’s idea. She wanted the coolest spells—the ones that let you teleport, see through walls, become invisible, levitate objects, and summon thunder—to be almost impossible to figure out

Click to expand...

And then the players get bored and stop playing because all the interesting powers are locked behind moon-logic puzzles.

Before I can enter my next sentence, a loud thunderclap explodes through the arena and a shadow appears over the ring, startling even me. I gasp and suddenly hope my mom didn’t hear me from the hall. PrestoBox has raised their arms and thrown their cape fifty feet in all directions above my head and Zama’s, consuming us in darkness. I look over at PrestoBox, who has revealed their body underneath the cape. They’re wearing the standard black stretchy shorts that every character gets by default, since we can’t have characters walking around naked, and they have gorgeous skin, the color of raw umber, with white body paint made to look like a skeleton from neck to toes.

Click to expand...

Head-canon, white body-paint is how the army of white trolls who've infiltrated the game identify each other.

“Kings and queens, you know the drill. We are here first and foremost to celebrate Black excellence in all its forms, from all parts of the globe. We are different ages, genders, tribes, tongues, and traditions. But tonight, we are all Black. And tonight, we all SLAY.”

Click to expand...

It's weird to brag about diversity in your segregation MMORPG. I wonder if Australian Aboriginals are allowed to play SLAY, or that one tribe of dark skinned people in China who tend to turn up playing black people in movies in TV? Fuck it, I want to know how Kiera determines who's black enough to play. Is it just based in blood quantums, or would she have to think long and hard about letting the aforementioned Rashida Jones play?

Also, five hundred thousand players, and not one of these guys is say, a streamer who might want to score some cheap views by showing the white folk the weird Wakanda card game?

The rules of duel engagement are simple,” I type. “Each dueler will draw six cards—two Battle cards, two Hex cards, and two Defense cards. Once the cards are drawn, duelers will have ten seconds to determine the order in which they want to use their cards. Duelers will fight using two cards each per round, in any combination they choose. In regular duels, Dueler One will launch attacks at the same time as Dueler Two. But because this is the Tundra Semifinals, and because luck makes everything more interesting, for this match, the dueler who draws the higher initial card will be allowed to use their first two cards five seconds before their opponent in round one. Defense cards beat Battle cards. Battle cards beat Hex cards. In rounds two and three, duelers will launch attacks at the same time, as per normal duel rules. The scores will appear on the Megaboard as the game progresses, and the drums will signal the beginning and end of each round. Is everybody ready?”

Click to expand...

Again, I'm not sure how real time, physical combat enters into this system.

Forgive me if I only show you the highlights of this match:

“It’s the Representation card!” I declare, watching the card appear on the Megaboard with the image of three identical silhouettes, since it duplicates the dueler times three. “A Defense card! Zama goes first.”

Click to expand...

Surely in this game, playing a Representation card should summon a white monster?

“And finally, remember that little queens and kings are watching. Opponents, respect each other in words and in actions. No trash talk. Let your skills speak for themselves. Now, are you ALL READY?!”

Click to expand...

So, there are children playing this game? I find that--with the exception of parental alcoholism and the strange games Uncle Bob plays with them--children are kind of shit at keeping secrets. Also, young kids are probably less likely to be too woke-poisoned to tell their white friends about a game they like.

“Zama has chosen the Gabby Douglas card and the Twist-Out card for a deadly combination. Very nice, but will it withstand PrestoBox’s selections, the Jimi Hendrix card and the Swerve card? We’ll find out in three! Two! One! And begin!”

Click to expand...

Gabby Douglas is an American gymnast and Olympic champion. I'm not sure why a book that painstakingly explains what "Slay" means doesn't at least mention that. Also, wait till the African or Bahamian players notice all the actual cultural references beyond imagery are American.

Zama taps the Twist-Out card first, and her hair grows into two monstrous ropes as thick in diameter as Thanksgiving dinner plates, ropes that deal no damage but can render the opponent immobile if they catch them.

Click to expand...

I love it when woke people accidentally recreate H.P Lovecraft plot-points.

Zama begins to stumble amid the violet fog. The crowd is loving this, and I’m loving it along with them. Even though I have all the cards’ stats memorized since I wrote most of them, I never know for sure how a match will end. The outcome depends on so many factors besides luck of the draw—aggressiveness, patience, reverse psychology, game theory, character strength, and frankly, how skilled the person behind the character is at using VR equipment.

Click to expand...

In other words, how rich and able-bodied you are. Such progress, much woke.

“Come on, Presto,” I urge. My heart skips as I realize I’ve said it in real life, and I lift one headphone to listen to the quiet of my room, just to make sure Mom hasn’t heard me.

Click to expand...

Just say you're playing a video-game? Just because you're watching one doesn't mean you invented it.

PrestoBox is off the ground, tapping their second, and last, round one card—the Swerve card, one of my favorites, marked by a black steering wheel as the artwork, since it comes from the expression “swerve,” which means “step off” or “stay in your lane.”

Click to expand...

Wouldn't be an ethno-narcissist game without telling people to stay in their lane.

“Honey, I hope you’re studying in there,” she calls.


“Yeah,” I holler, probably a little too fast. “I’m just taking a quick break.”


“Well, dinner’s almost ready anyway. You can take a break with us.”


“Is Dad home already?” I exclaim. It can’t be. It’s only—

Click to expand...

"Usually it takes Dad five years to go out for cigarettes!"

I kid, I kid. Kiera wishes she was that hood.

“Fine, just let me finish this show,” instead of what I meant to say: Fine, just let me finish this assignment. I scramble to correct myself. “I’m writing a report on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and its impact on Black culture in the nineties. I’m kind of in the middle of a train of thought here.”

Click to expand...

"This is very nice, Kiera, but this is chemistry class."

Me: Please tell me you’re watching this.


Cicada: Zama and Presto? It’s past midnight here and I have a final exam tomorrow. In other words, wouldn’t miss it.


I smile. I don’t know where Cicada lives, but she’s somewhere in the Central European Time Zone, putting her somewhere south of Norway and north of Nigeria, which doesn’t narrow it down much. I don’t know a lot about her, really, since most of our conversations are strictly business—related to game updates, new cards, landscape artwork, or server maintenance—but I know that I can trust her. She’s been on this SLAY train since the beginning, faithfully moderating matches when I can’t, and it works, since she’s somewhere on the other side of the world. She’s awake when I’m not.

Click to expand...

Wouldn't it be an amazing twist if Cicada was a helpful white chick?

“Attention, lovely kings and queens, I leave you in the capable hands of Cicada. Be conscious, and be well.”

Click to expand...

You know how woke historians like to remind people they probably would've been a peasant or a serf if they lived in the past?

I love her gown. It’s all white, off shoulder with white fur lining the neckline. A single strip of black fur lines the hood, which is pulled elegantly over her head. Her face is actually devoid of makeup. She just has the base-model face. But sometimes, if she’s feeling spunky, she’ll don the Princess Mononoke mask—the red and white one with the brown eyes. So badass. She’s sitting in the stands, so I can only see her from the torso up, but I’ve seen the gown in all its glory before. She looks like an ice princess. I wonder if she’s bald in real life too.

Click to expand...

Fun fact, the reason so many black women go for shaved heads is that, in many African cultures, hair is associated with animals, and thus a civilized person should have as little of it as possible. There's not really a joke there, I just like to provide more interesting context than the book does. Also, I assume manscaping is huge in those cultures.

“Dinner is getting cold!”
“I know, just—” I’m trying to catch my breath after being startled, so I don’t emerge from my room a raging ball of nerves. I’m already sweaty from the excitement of the match. I don’t want to look like I’ve just run a marathon while I’m supposed to be watching Fresh Prince.
“Just, get started without me. I’ll be out in five.”
“If you think you’re going to leave your father and me to listen to this rant about African American Vernacular English by ourselves, you’ve got another think coming.”

Click to expand...

"We will not endure this hell alone!"

And with that, this monstrous first chapter finally ends. Oh, by the way, Transhuman Earth Guardian in good standing Alabama Gamer has his own Cringe Side-Quest you should all check out.