In this essay Tressie discusses the relationships between African Americans, and Black ethnics, or Black people who were not born in the US, she refers to them as “Special Blacks”. She focuses on the perception of “Special Blacks” in university settings, and how schools capitalize off this perception while the rest of american culture will “not ask if you have an accent before it shoots you.” She discusses the necessity of code switching and how her privilege has allowed her to step away from code switching almost entirely. She ends the essay with “the false choice between black-black and worthy black is a trap. It poses that ending blackness was the goal of anti-racist work when the real goal has always been and should always be ending whiteness.”

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