The Wheat Money is the true story of two families; one white, the other black. In 2005, the families merged through marriage and a mixed-race child was born. Will that child, as she grows older, want to know why, when her parents met, one had a master's degree and a high paying job and the other was homeless and addicted to crack? The story of The Wheat Money begins in 1865, the same year the slaves were freed. Over 150 years of history, we see how one family was lifted up while the other continued to be held down. Tyler recounts the facts but also catalogs the economic, political and psychological forces that drove overtly racist policies, and encouraged the bigoted behavior of white Americans. She covers the racial bribe; last place aversion; and propaganda techniques like "othering" and fear-mongering. After following the families decade-by-decade, you'll arrive in the modern era to find a middle-class white mother and a Jim Crow-born black father trying to bring up their child together and finding no topic more incendiary than discussions of child rearing techniques. Both parents believe that they must prepare their child for her future. But should she be groomed to survive a gang jump in? Or is she better off developing the skills to defend a dissertation?