It’s the last week of school for Jasmine and her African, Haitian, Puerto Rican, Jamaican and Dominican classmates. Sitting in class, Jasmine attempts to will herself invisible as her teacher reads an article about a group of Black girls who, when shown a Black doll, start “screaming and scampering.” The article ran in “Frederick Douglass’ Paper.” In 1853.

School is about to begin again, and Jasmine is shaken to her core as she watches a 2005 film featuring little Black girls and boys reacting with shame and rejection when presented with a Black doll, even as they openly embrace a white doll. Jasmine knows their shame, having spent her entire childhood longing to get her skin bleached, just like Gavin. At age eight, Jasmine began secretly straightening her hair with a hot comb since she couldn’t figure out how to use the relaxer kit stashed in her mom’s closet. Throughout the novel, she is tormented by the evil voice inside that constantly reminds her of her "blackness."

But after spending time with her grandmother and after beginning a two-year rite of passage program with other girls who share her pain of being dark-skinned in a world that privileges and prizes light skin, Jasmine begins to see herself through new eyes.
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