Dashka Slater’s Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed (2023) is a work of young adult nonfiction. Slater is an investigative journalist known for exploring complex true stories involving youth and justice, most notably in her award-winning book The 57 Bus. In Accountable, she examines the fallout after a private, racist Instagram account created by a high school student is discovered in the progressive town of Albany, California. The account’s hateful content targeting specific Black and Asian students shatters friendships and the community, leading to a complex aftermath of protests, lawsuits, and lasting trauma. Set against a national backdrop of rising school-based hate incidents, Accountable investigates the themes of Humor as Camouflage for Bigotry, The Consequences of Silence in the Face of Racism, and The Limits of Punitive Justice. The book was a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction and won a California Book Award.

This guide refers to the 2023 Farrar Straus Giroux first edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of racism, bullying, religious discrimination, gender discrimination, antigay bias, ableism, suicidal ideation, self-harm, death by suicide, disordered eating, mental illness, physical abuse, child abuse, child sexual abuse, graphic violence, cursing, illness, and death.

Summary

In the seemingly progressive community of Albany, California—known to locals as “Smallbany”—life for the students of Albany High School revolves around academic pressure and college ambitions. Among them is Charles, a Korean American junior navigating a difficult home life marked by his parents’ divorce and his father’s subsequent arrest for possession of child pornography. He finds his sense of belonging within a group of male friends who prize “edgy” humor. In the same social orbit is Andrea, a biracial junior who often feels out of place. She carries the trauma of her Black father’s anger and eventual death, and she struggles with the microaggressions she faces at the predominantly white and Asian school. The social hierarchy of Charles’s friend group often places quieter boys like Wyatt and Jon at the bottom, making them the targets of relentless teasing that they are expected to endure. This tense social ecosystem is primed for conflict, which erupts when Charles’s penchant for provocative jokes crosses a line into overt racism.

In late 2016, while with his friends Greg, Steven, and Patrick, Charles makes a meme. He pairs a photo of his biracial friend Ana with an image of an enslaved man being beaten, captioning it with a play on one of her social media posts. Encouraged by Greg, Charles creates a private Instagram account, @yungcavage, to house this “edgier” content. The account, which gains 13 followers from his inner circle and a few younger students, becomes a repository for racist, sexist, and ableist posts. He targets specific students, comparing Andrea to a gorilla, mocking an Asian friend’s weight, and posting a picture of a Black classmate, Lolia, and her basketball coach with nooses drawn around their necks. For months, the account exists as a secret shared among its followers.

The secret is revealed on March 18, 2017, when Charles’s friend Murphy shows his friends Lolia and Sita the @yungcavage account on his phone. They are horrified. News of the account spreads like wildfire through the school’s Black student community. Two days later, a group of girls, including Lolia and Ana, shows a devastated Andrea the “gorilla” post and other offensive content insulting her hair. They go to the school administration, but they lack concrete proof. 

Kerry, a friend of both Charles and the targeted girls, hatches a plan. During psychology class, she has her friend Rosie borrow a phone from a sophomore follower named Eren. In the bathroom, Kerry uses her own phone to take screenshots of the account’s most offensive posts, the follower list, and the comments, securing the evidence needed for the school to act. The administration calls in the police, and Charles, warned by Greg that the account has been discovered, deactivates it. That night, Charles confesses to his older sister, Eliza, and posts a public apology on his main Instagram account, taking full responsibility for his “stupid judgment.”

The school suspends all 13 followers and, after a tumultuous week, plans a mediation session facilitated by a nonprofit called SEEDS for March 30, the day the followers are scheduled to return. The session, held in Room 104, is a disaster. The main perpetrators—Charles, Patrick, and Greg—are not present, leaving the remaining followers to face the anger of the targeted students and their supporters. The followers are defensive, attempting to minimize their involvement, which only infuriates the girls. The situation explodes when Superintendent Val Williams sends a school-wide email about a suspected noose found in the adjacent park. The targeted students in the room accuse the followers of planting it, and the mediation collapses.

The other students then force the followers to exit the room and stand before a massive student sit-in protest that has amassed in the main atrium. As hundreds of their peers hurl insults, the scene descends into chaos, exacerbated when Eren’s mother storms through the crowd to defend her son. The noose is later confirmed to be a rope swing, but the damage is done. The followers are escorted out the school’s back exit into a waiting mob. Murphy’s nose is broken in a fistfight, and a minivan carrying Eren and two other sophomores is surrounded and rocked by enraged protesters.

In the aftermath, the community fractures. An attempt by parents from both sides to reconcile at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church fails after Lewis, Ana’s father, delivers a powerful speech at a school board meeting, demanding the expulsion of all those involved. The school places the followers on independent study, and a series of lawsuits follows. Several followers sue the school district, alleging violations of their First Amendment rights and the school’s failure to protect them. The district eventually settles with seven of the students, paying out significant sums that provoke outrage from the families of the targeted students. Andrea, at her mother’s urging, files her own lawsuit against Charles, Patrick, Greg, and their parents for the emotional distress and civil rights violations she suffered. Charles is officially expelled from the school district, while Patrick and Greg withdraw. The incident leaves deep scars on everyone involved, breaking friendships and leaving both the targeted students and the followers grappling with anxiety, depression, and social ostracization.

Years later, the students find their own paths toward healing. Charles moves to Florida to live with his sister, where he gets a job and, through conversations with his sister’s housemates, begins a slow process of self-reflection and education about race and privilege. Andrea, after receiving a settlement from her lawsuit, travels to Guatemala to study yoga and meditation, finding a sense of freedom and a way to move forward. The other targeted students, such as Billie and Rina, channel their energy into their academic and career goals as a way to leave Albany behind. Some friendships are mended, while others remain irrevocably broken. 

The incident resurfaces in the summer of 2020 during the George Floyd protests, when Tiana, one of the targeted girls, posts a lengthy Twitter thread detailing the events and naming the followers. This public revival forces the followers, now young adults, to once again reckon with their past actions in a national climate newly focused on racial justice.