Taking Sides

“I’d rather be playin’ for Franklin, not Columbus. There’s no brown people here. Everyone’s white, except for one black dude on the team. And our coach is a nasty dude. He’s got trouble inside his head.”

Lincoln’s remark concisely establishes the book’s main conflict. Lincoln believes he belongs back with Tony in the Mission District. He is not wrong to perceive an undercurrent of racism in Sycamore—Yesutis’s racism emerges later in the novel—but Lincoln’s sense that there is nothing for him at his new school proves overly simplistic.

“He looked closely at the camel driver smiling into the camera. The camel driver’s teeth were rotten and his face was lined from working in the sun.”

This is the first time Lincoln sees the “Egypt” section of his geography book, which is one of the book’s major motifs. Lincoln’s perception of the camel shapeshifts in tandem with his feelings about himself and his surroundings; at this early stage, Egypt and the camel driver primarily strike Lincoln as foreign, much like Sycamore.

“We play your old school again, don’t we?”

Tony and Lincoln’s phone call has already established the upcoming match between Franklin and Columbus, so James’s question does not provide any new information. However, the fact that the game is on James’s mind signifies that the tension Lincoln feels about the game is palpable to others. James’s sensitivity to this also characterizes him as a genuine friend to Lincoln.