Black Buck

Part 5 revolves around two primary themes: the sociopolitical question of racial parity in employment opportunities, and issues of moral responsibility in interpersonal relationships. It also reveals that Darren is in prison and raises questions about the value of freedom, which the Epilogue discusses more fully.

The battle between the Happy Campers and WUSS represents an ongoing debate about affirmative action. Intended to correct the legacy of white privilege, affirmative action has drawn ire from critics who deem it to be unequal and, therefore, unjust. By setting a racially tiered price structure for the bake sale he is hosting, Clyde intends to demonstrate that white people are being discriminated against while Black people and other people of color are getting a handout. Clyde claims that affirmative action is “a tool for reverse racists to fill top institutions with kids who don’t belong there” and that it harms white people who “have nothing to do with the actions of their ancestors” (327). Claims such as these fail to contend with unequal legacies of wealth and opportunity, differentially distributed across race. Clyde’s auctioning off the labor of unhoused individuals references the most egregious example of racially differentiated access to opportunity in the history of the United States: chattel slavery, which enabled some white individuals and their descendants to accrue vast amounts of wealth while exploiting the labor of Black individuals and depriving their descendants of access to wealth and opportunity. While torturing Clyde, Rose refers to the likelihood that his family has been “accruing generational wealth along the way and lining your pockets with money made from cotton picked by the very enslaved people they owned” (337).

Even those white people whose ancestors did not directly own or profit from slavery nonetheless were free, and free of the restrictions on access to employment and property ownership that has continued to constrain Black individuals’ ability to accrue wealth. Bonnie’s claim that Black people simply need to “buck up, get good grades, and reach for the American dream” overlooks the centuries of unequal access to wealth and opportunity along racial lines (363). Darren argues that, rather than being some sort of racist terrorist organization, as detractors would have it, the Happy Campers function as a network for accessing opportunity that parallels entrenched white networks of power, such as the family ties that The Duchess relied on to get the interview at Sumwun. Early on, he notes that sales “is not a meritocracy” and that “knowing how to double down on what makes you special will help you get ahead” (116). According to Darren’s logic, Happy Campers operates as a network of influence and opportunity for Black people and other people of color, in parallel to the preexisting, predominantly white networks through which wealth and opportunity have historically flowed.

Ample evidence throughout the book—the notable lack of Black employees at Sumwun and other tech companies; the obstacles Darren faces when trying to generate sales in the absence of the connections his white colleagues have; the overtly racist statements Clyde directs at him—substantiates Darren’s claims that intrinsic “merit” alone is not enough: Access to opportunity is what counts. Though Darren’s perspective, as a character in the novel, shouldn’t be conflated with that of the author of the book, creating opportunities for BIPOC individuals and communities so that they have a chance to succeed comes across as one of the core themes of the book.

Significantly, Part 5 represents mainstream institutions, and the white individuals who have benefitted from them, as hostile to the idea of BIPOC success. By emphasizing how entrenched structures of power distribute opportunity and wealth unequally, the alternative Happy Campers organization challenges the stranglehold that white supremacy—meaning white social dominance and the institutions that perpetuate it—has over the futures of individuals in the United States, and it provides assistance to achieve the success that the American Dream promises. Part 5 also illustrates white resistance to the idea that white privilege, rather than personal merit, has played a role in white individuals’ success. Complaining that there’s nothing “bad” about being white, Happy Campers’ critics miss the real point that Darren and his peers are making: that there’s nothing “bad” about being BIPOC and that access to opportunities needs to reflect that. 

In Part 5, Askaripour explores the idea of selling as something more expansive than conducting financial transactions that revolve around closing deals and hitting target numbers. In his speech at the conference, Darren emphasizes this idea of access to opportunity rather than trying to persuade a hostile crowd that the legacy of white supremacy is real. By focusing on what he and his audience have in common—their childhood aspirations—Darren succeeds in persuading them about the truth of Happy Campers’ intentions, even if he can’t dispel their anger or convince them of the reality of the racial inequities that the organization is trying to redress. Even though Darren hasn’t fully “sold” the audience on the validity of Happy Campers or the vision of equity that he promotes, he has had an effect on his audience nonetheless. Convincing “people who may still have hated [him]” to “[see his] humanity” is, for Darren, what makes him “finally, truly, and completely free” (365).

Darren’s statements about achieving freedom—which, we know, belie his incarceration—set up the themes explored further in the Epilogue. Darren judges this “deal” to be a success, closing his reflection on its outcome with the celebratory exclamation, “Whoosh! Bang! Poof! Every day is deals day, baby. Every day is deals day” (365). He thus likens the effect of his speech to a superhero’s flight into the stratosphere, above earthly cares and observations, repeating a phrase he uses elsewhere in the novel to mark moments of success.

Part 5 also brings a reckoning for Darren’s past actions, in the form of Trey’s revenge for Mr. Rawlings’s eviction. In Part 4, Darren had finally begun to realize that he needed to think about how his actions affect those around him, after Brian’s release from jail following the failed sales lesson at the restaurant. In Part 5, he takes personal responsibility more seriously than he did earlier in the novel, when he was focused on personal success. After the fire at the Happy Campers headquarters, Darren decides to rethink his attachment to the life of luxury his sales career has afforded him. He envisions that he and his colleagues are “going to be models of how the twenty-first-century salesperson should live—not like monks, rejecting all worldly possessions, but also not like rockstars who lived only for themselves” (356). This commitment to think beyond living for oneself alone is a core tenet of Happy Campers’ philosophy and operational model: In addition to connecting individuals with opportunities, members “donat[e] half of [their] first paycheck to the organization as well as at least twenty-five percent of any referral fees” they accrue by recommending candidates for tech jobs (306). Devoting financial resources to the greater good of the community, rather than blowing them on cocaine, partying, and a lavish apartment, as Darren did earlier, is one of the ways that he envisions how he, and other Happy Campers, can use sales to build a culture that values collective success above individual achievements.

This view of sales is very different from the one that governs Sumwun. At Sumwun, loyalty to the company stands out above all other values, but that loyalty has no purpose beyond the limited horizon of success for the company itself; though helping people in need is the ostensible aim of Sumwun’s service, making sales and growing revenue—rather than any altruistic motives—are what drive employees to work. Continuing to enjoy office perks and partying, rather achieving some greater social good, are their objectives. When Rhett asks Darren to “denounce the Happy Campers” (322), he counters Darren’s objections by claiming, “It’s not about race […] It’s all about the company. No one cares about the color of your skin” (322). Multiple examples throughout the novel disprove Rhett’s claims about the irrelevance of race: Clyde’s race-baiting, particularly the white paint incident; Darren’s appearance on the Sandra Stork show for the sake of “optics”; the white Sumwuners’ complaints that Darren is “favor[ing] the Black SDRs” and that “White lives matter, too” (324). While the old Darren might have gone along with Rhett’s dictates, as he did in helping Sumwun evade responsibility for Donesha Clark’s murder, here, Darren stands by his principles: He won’t betray the BIPOC Sumwuners by disavowing Happy Campers. By contrasting Sumwun’s lack of social responsibility with Happy Campers’ investment in a greater social good that transcends financial success, Askaripour represents an alternative to a narrowly individualistic perspective of selling, and instead shows how it can support communal values and redistribute advantages.

In keeping with the themes of social responsibility and values that transcend the self, Darren must also pay the price for his past egoism. His grievous harm to Mr. Rawlings violates the principles of helping others and respecting one’s elders that his mother urged him to follow during her life and in her letter to him. Because he turned on someone he was close to and who always supported him, Darren now must face the consequences for his selfishness. Askaripour only metes out this kind of moral reckoning to Darren; other characters do not have to account for their actions in the same way. Clyde, as the villain of the novel, gets tortured by Rose and Jason, and Darren finally delivers him a punch, but beyond that, he continues to enjoy his privileged life. By contrast, Darren’s newly revived moral center—evident in his refusal to use the photos of Clyde against him—is, in purely practical terms, a liability. By describing Darren’s tale as a “cautionary memoir” and ending Part 5 with Darren asking himself the question, “Was it all worth it?” (377), Askaripour asks the reader to think about the relationship between moral values, achievement, and the social structures in which they operate. Retribution, like opportunity, is distributed unequally.