An helpless Italian accountant is dispatched to the U.S. to find a black player for his company's basketball team, mistakenly recruiting a Black Power radical. The odd couple becomes friends, but America's racism keeps rearing its ugly head.

Chantel Mitchell, a hip, articulate, black high-school girl in Brooklyn, is determined not to become "just another girl on the IRT" (the IRT is one of NYC's subway lines). She dreams of medical school, a family, and an escape from the generational poverty and street-corner life her friends seem to have accepted as their lot. But personal and sexual challenges confront Chantel on her way to fulfilling these dreams.