The Sellout begins with the narrator/protagonist sparking a joint while on trial at the Supreme Court of the United States of America for re-instituting segregation. We then jump back in time to his childhood and learn the events that led to his arrest.

While his hometown of Dickens is a rough ghetto community on the outskirts of LA, the protagonist was raised on a farm by his single father, a psychologist who constantly performed social experiments with his son as the main subject.