Adult Dean: Growing up, Mom and Dad gave me "The Police Talk" about how to handle yourself around cops. There was a presidential election that created a racial divide, and there was a flu pandemic that they said would kill a million people around the world. But it was 1968. And that's the state our country was in. Yeah, even the flu part. This was the year I turned 12, the age where you transfer from boy to man. Or as the old folks used to say, "When a boy starts smelling himself." The previous summer's race riots had caused the first wave of "white flight" to the suburbs. As a kid, I didn't understand all that. We had neighborhoods that were just as safe as the ones they were developing outside the city. There were teachers, veterans, shop owners, all united by pride, self-determination, and the right to spank any kid caught outside after the street lights came on.

Bill: Shh. Be cool.
Adult Dean: "Be cool" was Daddy's catch-all advice for every situation.
[flashback to Bill throwing a match on the grill:]
Bill: Be cool.
[flashback to Dean gasping as he's electrocuted by a wall socket:]
Bill: Be cool.
[flashback to Bill in the driver's seat with his family as their car is stopped by the police:]
Bill: Be cool.

Adult Dean: I didn't understand a lot of what was going on, especially why when people get really upset about something bad, they resort to destroying their own things.
Man: [o.s.] Sick and tired of this!
Adult Dean: But something told me that my friends were probably just as confused as I was.
Man: [o.s.] Why do they keep doing this to us?!
Woman: [o.s.] Nothing but them ol' white folks.
[When Dean arrives at the old school, he finds Cory and Keisa kissing]
Adult Dean: Suddenly, the anger I was seeing on the news made a little more sense, especially because it felt like some things would never change.
[Dean throws a rock at a school window and then puts his glasses back on before riding his bicycle home]
Adult Dean: Everybody in my family plays that day over and over in their minds. But for different reasons. For each of us, it felt like the world around us had changed forever.
[Lillian lets Dean in when he arrives home. In the living room, Dean notices the baseball on the mantle, signed "Dean's game ball 4/4/68"]
Adult Dean: But thankfully, for each of us, the world on the inside hadn't.

Adult Dean: My dad was a music professor by day and a funk musician by night. In other words, he was the baddest dude I knew.
Lillian: Dean, I know you did not just come into this house without speaking.
Dean: But I heard...
Lillian: No "buts"! How about "Hello, Mama. Hello, Daddy. How are you?"
Kim: [enters] I heard Daddy's song in Kwame's car.
Lillian: You did? Dean, quit running your mouth and turn on the radio!
Dean: That's what I was trying...
Lillian: Boy, move!

Bill: Plenty of good Black colleges out there, too, you know. She can go to 'Skegee like us. Better yet, Spelman. No boys. It's a win-win.
Kim: For who?
Bill: [points to himself] Win. [points to Lillian] Win. [laughter]
Adult Dean: A lot of Black folks like my dad didn't feel like we needed to mix with White people to be better off. But my dad put his money where his mouth was. He'd always hire the Black doctor, Black accountant, the Black plumber, and often he'd have something we'd call "Black regret." [water dripping]

Coach Long: A scrimmage against some all-White team from across town? Hell, no.
Dean: But our friend Brad's on that team. We go to the same school. We should be able to play each other.
Coach Long: Do us both a favor, put all that energy in learning how to catch a fly ball without [bleep] your pants.
Adult Dean: If a coach said that today, he'd have to go to sensitivity training. At least that's what they made me do when I cussed out my son's team.

Adult Dean: One thing about being 12 that hasn't changed over the decades is that it's around 12 where you figure out what your place is in the world. But being in my family made that hard. I'd never be as popular as my sister or as athletic as my brother, as smart as my mom or as bad as my dad. That's the problem with being the youngest. By the time you're born, all the good parts have been handed out. [sighs] Stupid play. I mean, Sheep #3? Really? But 12 was the age I was gonna figure out what my bag was.

Kim: Let's go over analogies. [Kim sighs] The SATs are important, Kim.
Kim: This stupid test has nothing to do with real life. You know, Bobby Seale and H. Rap Brown didn't even finish college.
Bill: You're going to college. I'm sure the revolution's gonna need a good dentist or accountant. [Dean and Bill laugh] Besides, what kind of music professor would I be if my daughter didn't go to college? Bad enough my son doesn't have rhythm.
Dean: Hey!
Bill: Yet. My son doesn't have rhythm yet.

Brad: Hey, fellas! What's happening?
Adult Dean: Brad, the Pee Wee Reese to my Jackie Robinson. That is if Pee Wee Reese were Jewish and Jackie Robinson couldn't catch a fly ball.
Cory: Take a guess.
Brad: Dean's still afraid to tell Keisa he likes her? Film at 11:00.
Dean: Shut up, Brad.
Brad: What? I'm telling you, she already knows.
Dean: How? Unless you blabbed.
Brad: She can tell by the stupid way you look at her. You look like a wet dream.
Cory: It's such a wet dream.
Dean: I do not look like a wet dream.
Adult Dean: Okay, we clearly had no idea what that meant yet. Still, good burn.

Brad: [whispers to Dean] Hey, he's not prejudiced.
Adult Dean: Well, if he wasn't, then the ball was.