Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America

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.