Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

Fiction | Anthology/Varied Collection | YA | Published in 2019

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“Whoa!” by Rita Williams-GarciaChapter Summaries & Analyses

“Whoa!” Summary

Danté is a Black college freshman who works as a model to pay his tuition. He is studying fashion with the hope of eventually having his own business and clothing line.

He prepares to get ready for a photo shoot by putting steaming water into his Great-Granny’s water basin, filling it with herbs, and putting his face over it to cleanse. However, when he looks down into the basin, he sees a face staring back at him.

He talks with the man in his basin and learns that the man is an enslaved person named John. He is alive in the 1840s and is fetching water from the basin for his master. The two discuss what their lives are like—with Danté trying to explain to him what his job is despite the fact that John does not understand what fashion or magazines are. John makes fun of him for not doing real work, while also telling him that he carves furniture for “freedom money.” John regularly returns to the fact that Danté’s hair is in “shackles,” failing to understand what dreadlocks are. Danté repeatedly uses the word “Whoa!” and explains to John that it means “slow down,” as one or the other of them is going too fast and not making any sense. John begins using the phrase as well as their conversation goes on.

Danté realizes that as the water cools down and the steam fades, so does John. He decides to tell John that slavery will come to an end and he will be freed, that man will eventually make it to the moon, that a Black man will be president, and that he will eventually have a legal husband. John responds with laughter as Danté hears the snap of a whip.

Danté sits up and realizes that he is in bed. As he gets ready for his photo shoot, he cannot shake the fact that his dream seemed so real. At the shoot, he loses the job because he is unable to focus and cannot stop thinking about John.

That night, he calls his Great-Granny Mae and tells her about his dream. She responds with laughter but tells him not to worry. She reveals to him that she heard stories when she was younger about Laughing John Carver. She says that he went to the well for water and was whipped for taking too long—but only responded with laughter and the word “Whoa” and was never the same thereafter.

“Whoa!” Analysis

The story “Whoa!” uses a cliffhanger and ambiguity at the conclusion of the text to explore the importance of a person’s history. Throughout the text, Danté is obsessed with his appearance—his hair, his clothing, and his modeling. Although modeling is important to him because it pays for his schooling, it is also harmful in that his beauty and his looks control a large part of his life. When he looks into the basin for his morning ritual and comes face to face with John, an enslaved person living in the 1840s, he realizes the vast difference between where he is now and where life was for his ancestors nearly two centuries before. For Danté, this gives him insight into his history, and causes him to reach out to his grandmother for more information about their history—connecting him with his past. For John, the interaction does not have the impact that Danté expects it to have; when Danté realizes where society has gone—how he is openly gay, there is a Black president, and slavery has ended—it causes John simply to laugh and repeatedly use the phrase “Whoa!” that he has learned from Danté. Ultimately, this conveys to Danté the importance of being grateful for what he has and the position he is able to be in, thanks in large part to the history that has come before him. Ultimately, as the ending is left ambiguous as to whether it was an actual encounter or just a dream, the effect on Danté is the same: He has a renewed appreciation for his ancestry.