Spatializing Racial Difference and Geographic Struggle in Paul Beatty’s Los Angeles

Abstract In Paul Beatty’s 2015 novel The Sellout, the fictional town of Dickens, a “ghetto community” in South Los Angeles, disappears from the map. Though The Sellout is considered a comic satire most often read for its critique of the neoliberal, “postracial” period following the election of Barack Obama in 2008, this article argues that the novel advances a historically attuned account of the link between “race” and space in Los Angeles. Tracing the narrator’s efforts to reinstate Dickens, this article discusses myriad, at times controversial, placemaking methods. These include posting homemade signs, drawing its boundary on the map, and not least, painting a thick white border on the physical landscape. As the border works to spatially and racially segregate Dickens from “White America,” The Sellout comes into view as an account of how multiethnic racial formation and spatial formation are co-constituted. At the same time, Dickens reveals the radical sensibilities and collective work that become possible in spatial contest.