Racism assumes many different forms and is not exclusive toward or from any particular group of people.

Racism assumes many different forms and is not exclusive toward or from any particular group of people. Race relations and racism therein rest in the heart of Greenidge’s novel, especially as the disturbing history of the Toneybee Institute comes to matter so greatly in the present.

When the novel begins, Charlotte and her family leave their black community in Boston for the mostly-white rural area of Courtland County to participate in the communication experiment. Having been around primarily black people for most of her life, Charlotte feels out of place to some extent at the Institute because so many of the researchers are white, whereas many blacks in Boston held racially elite views in that they did not consider Charlotte to be black enough. Charlotte and Callie quickly learn...