Here Among Americans

Plot Summary
The manuscript is a collection of short short stories centering around race and the African
American experience, speaking on themes of identity, white hierarchy and prejudice. The first
story is about a black man who moves to The Whitest Town in America and signs up for a
service that connects black people with other black people. The second story is told from the
perspective of a member of a white supremacy group. The third story is told in 2nd person point
of view, putting the reader in the shoes of a white American man whose internal dialogue
reveals his prejudices and experiences with race being married to a black woman.

Potential Audience
The audience for this manuscript would be African Americans most evidently, and also people of
color and white people. Fans of Jordan Peele’s Get Out would enjoy this story as it deals with
racial elements in a post-modern, eerie way. However, I think the manuscript’s target audience
would be black people since they can relate to many of the messages and experiences of the
characters throughout the story.

Comparative Titles
I would compare this work to contemporary African American literature titles, such as works by
Toni Morrison. Her story The Bluest Eye explores themes of colorism, white beauty standards
and racism and center around the inahbitants of a black town in the 1940s.

Publishing Potential + Personal Statement

This collection of stories really reminded me of works by Jordan Peele, especially the first story.
Here Among Americans took a futuristic, dystopian approach and reminded me of a black
Twilight Zone. Something I noted about the story was the style, particularly in the vagueness of
how things were addressed. Instead of giving specific city names or restaurants, things were
titled “The Whitest City in America,” “The Biggest Athletic Shoe Company in the World,” “The
Blackest Actor in the World,” etc. This technique helped to convey the mystery surrounding the
town, especially since it’s later uncovered that there are black robots in the city. Something else
I liked about the story was the symbolism of the company the narrator works at being the cause
of deaths among black kids in urban cities. The fact that the shoe company was based in the
whitest city in America and they were making shoes for black kids that were killing them speaks
volumes on current societal issues regarding race. That was an effective technique to lie reality
into this eerie, dystopian world. My one critique is the main character and his relationship with
Desiree, who was so incredibly racist and openly fetishized him. I found it odd that he felt so
isolated as a black man yet continued to see this white woman and describe her features very
in-depth (calling her breasts perfectly white, for example). But perhaps that is showing that he
also faces his own internal prejudices. The second story I found pretty unsettling since it was
from the perspective of a white supremacist. The events were hard to follow since there were so
many ideas going on. The last story was extremely impactful. It was this slow buildup of a
character who ends up making a life-changing decision. The choice to use 2nd person POV for
the white American male character puts the audience in his shoes. In the beginning, he starts off
by saying he isn’t racist, then talks about his black wife, and contrasts himself to his
openly-racist friend. The friendship between him and Paul works very well in making the narrator
seem ‘not as bad’ in his views. But as the story progresses and his life starts to crumble, his
racism is much louder, though he still justifies it all the way to the end.