Summary

In Chapter 3, “evolution” (57), Rankine contemplates something a friend told her recently about attending an antiracism workshop run by white facilitators. She wonders if it is appropriate for such workshops to be run without people of color in leadership roles. Another friend told her about attending a diversity workshop in which attendees were presented with a hypothetical classroom scenario in which a student claims that an African art sculpture of a person's head “looks like a monkey” (61). The attendees are asked how they would handle the situation and most agreed to do nothing because the comment was a joke. Rankine's friend spoke up and said the joke was offensive. This anecdote introduces a brief history of black people being compared to apes or monkeys, which suggests that they are not fully human—not evolved.

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