Presents a memoir-in-essays of Damon Young on what it was like growing up and has continued to be like as an adult while being black in the United States, dealing with angst and everyday racism, from the story of himself as a teen and the time when he tried to goad a white person into using a racial slur just to pick a fight, up to his adulthood and witnessing the gentrification of his once-predominantly black Pittsburgh neighborhood into what he called "Portlandia but with Pierogies."