Tearrance A Chisholm

Lynchburg Virginia. The former site of a thriving cotton mill is now an impoverished neighborhood. Deeply affected by all the recent killings of young black men like himself Ruffrino a 14-year-old militant incites riots at school and online. As Ruffrino grows more and more at odds with his mother and grandfather his anger builds beyond containment. Meanwhile the family home literally sinks into the cotton field and no one but Ruffrino seems to notice.

Marquis and Tru are both fourteen-year-old black boys but they exist in two totally different worlds. Marquis is a booksmart prep-schooler living in the affluent suburb of Achievement Heights while Tru is a street-savvy kid from deep within the inner city of Baltimore. Their worlds overlap one day in a holding cell. Tru decides that Marquis has lost his "blackness" and pens a how-to manual entitled "Being Black for Dummies." He assumes the role of professor but Marquis proves to be a reluctant pupil. They butt heads debate wrestle and ultimately prove that Nietzsche and 2pac were basically saying the same thing.