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Summary
Chapter Seventeen
The students of color at Bri’s school are furious that Long and Tate have been reinstated despite their tendency to racially profile students and their unfair treatment of Bri. At the entrance to the school, Bri realizes that the other students expect her to react and are looking to her to take the lead. But instead, Curtis starts singing lyrics from “On the Come Up” about Long and Tate’s mistreatment of Bri. Other students join in and soon begin to chant some of the more violent lines of Bri’s song. One student hits Long and then other students, including Curtis, join in hitting and kicking the two security guards. Bri pulls Curtis away, warning him that the cops are coming. Bri, Curtis, Malik, Sonny, and Shana run to safety as the police begin to arrive.
Nearly every student of color meets at Malik’s house for a coalition meeting to address the security guards’ return. Shana pressures Bri to release the video of what Long and Tate did to her, but Bri refuses. Shana and Bri get into an argument, and Bri leaves the meeting.
When Bri gets home, she pretends everything is fine in front of her family. They begin to watch the afternoon news, which covers the riot at the high school. The news anchor says that students started chanting a violent song by “local rapper Bri” right before the violence broke out. Then they play parts of Bri’s song on the air while showing her picture. It is the first time Jay has heard about the song. She stares at the TV in shock.
Chapter Eighteen
Jay is shocked and angry that Bri is on the news with a song she recorded. She confronts Bri about portraying herself as violent and armed in the song. Bri argues that she was trying to hold a mirror up to people’s perceptions. Her mother says that she and Bri don’t have the freedom to play with people’s assumptions. She forbids Bri from rapping.
Instead of listening to her mother, Bri meets with Supreme that evening. He tells her that her song has hit #1 after the news segment. As a reward, he gives her a brand-new pair of real Timbs. Bri is grateful but also wary of accepting the Timbs. Her grandfather has taught her that everything comes with a price.
Supreme argues that publicity is good for Bri and says that white people love to make Black people into villains for telling the truth. When Dee-Nice joins them, Bri realizes Supreme is trying to get Bri to sign him as her manager. Supreme promises he can help her earn the money to get her family out of poverty. She agrees to fire Aunt Pooh and work with Supreme.
Chapter Nineteen
When Bri gets home, her mother tells her she got food stamps and quit school in order to focus on supporting the family. She tells Bri to lay low, avoid the media, and focus on school. When Bri emerges from a study session, she finds out that a white writer, Emily Taylor, published an article in the local paper about Bri. Taylor argues that the song Bri wrote is violent and dangerous and says she’s started a petition to have it removed from the internet. Taylor says that everyone needs to “protect our children,” and Bri notes that the children in question obviously do not include her. Bri goes live on Instagram and launches into an angry rant about the article while five hundred fans watch. She gives the writer the finger and says no one can silence her.
Analysis
In these chapters, Bri struggles with how to respond to the seemingly inescapable stereotypes that the white media uses to shape the public’s perception of her. Both the news segment and Emily Taylor’s article are filtered through the white gaze, which sees Bri not as a frustrated teen or an artist, but as a Black threat. The media erases the context in which Bri wrote “On the Come Up”: as a response to being racially profiled and attacked at her school. Instead, they create a two-dimensional portrayal of Bri and project their stereotype onto it. By centering white voices, both in the interview of a white student on the news and in the article by Emily Taylor, the media transforms the story of a Black student’s assault and the resulting protest by students of color into a story, instead, about white fear. Supreme responds to this kind of stereotyping by dismissing it as inevitable and encouraging Bri to embrace the stereotypes, act like a violent person, and capitalize off society’s injustices. With everyone telling her who she is and no one listening to her side of the story, Bri is tempted by Supreme’s advice to play into stereotypes, which he positions as the only path to success in a rigged system.
The media’s representation of Bri’s song, as well as Jay’s subsequent lecture, also exposes how white bias denies the privileges and protections of childhood to Black children like Bri. Emily Taylor’s call to ban Bri’s song stems directly from the fact that her white thirteen-year-old son loves it. When Taylor implores readers to “protect our children” from Bri’s violent lyrics, Bri immediately recognizes that “our children” does not include herself, a sixteen-year-old who has experienced actual violence at the hands of police. As a mother, Jay also wants to protect Bri from violence. By forbidding Bri from rapping and explaining that Black people—even children—don’t have the privilege of speaking their mind, Jay hopes to protect Bri from the wrath of audiences who will inevitably misconstrue her words. But like most adolescents, Bri deeply resents the adults who wish to protect her. Jay’s prohibition on rapping and speaking to the media backfires spectacularly when Bri disobeys her, publicly calling out her critics in a profane rant that showcases her immaturity.
The opportunistic Supreme is a little too pleased with Bri’s public outbursts, which he knows will only amplify her fame and his fortune. When he offers Bri the brand new Timbs, he is positioning himself as someone who can take better care of Bri than Jay and Aunt Pooh, the adults in her life who actually care about her. Bri has her reservations, knowing that the new Timbs will come with strings attached. Before she opens the gift, she notes that Supreme, “flashes those gold fangs” like some sinister vampire who is not to be trusted. But Bri takes the bait anyway. Soon after Bri accepts the Timbs, Supreme begins to press her to sign him as her manager. Playing off Bri’s material need for new boots and her emotional need to be taken care of, Supreme convinces Bri that he has her best interests in mind. But by the time Bri fires Aunt Pooh and signs with Supreme, it’s fairly clear to the reader who the real villain is.
