Racism and Oppression

Although the narrative takes place in a near-future America, the novel explores contemporary issues of racism and injustice, amplifying their impacts through satire and dramatic irony. The narrator encounters racist ideologies in nearly all aspects of his life. As a lawyer, he is subject to the cruel stereotypes of his white colleagues and treated as a diversity-pawn used to attract certain wealthy clientele. Outside of the workplace, the narrator experiences everyday racism in the form of microaggressions. In public places, strangers eye him suspiciously and mistake him for hired help. One woman approaches him at a basketball game and accuses him of kidnapping his own son, Nigel, whose biracial skin color contrasts with his father’s.

The novel highlights the ways in which structural racism enacts control and punishment on people of color. Even as an educated and upper-middle-class citizen, the narrator’s race...