Summary

Chapter 1, “what if” (3), features an untitled poem in which Rankine wonders about the possibility of change, specifically the possibility of people of different races coming to a better understanding of one another. The speaker of the poem seems to be addressing someone with whom they are relatively intimate, wondering if they might be closer were it not for the racial barrier.

In Chapter 2, “liminal spaces i” (13), Rankine recalls preparing to teach a class about whiteness at Yale University. She notes that her students often lack a foundation of knowledge about the history of racism and whiteness as a social construct. To the latter point, she references the fact that ethnicities like Irish, Italian, and Slavic were once viewed as separate races in America before being subsumed under the category of “white.”

Rankine explains that, with the exception of her...