Racial Violence as Genocide

One of the most prominent and persistent sentiments in Everett’s novel is the idea that violence against Black Americans is a phenomenon which when looked at as a whole constitutes a result equivalent to genocide. This idea is raised in Mama Z’s consolidation of racist murders, including those considered lynching as well as police shootings and the spontaneous brutalization of Black and other marginalized people. Mama Z mentions that she has collected over 7,000 records of such crimes since 1913; the sheer number of these incidents stresses that these crimes, while ongoing rather than happening all at once, have had a devastating collective effect, particularly on Black Americans, and continue to do so. Gertrude expresses this sentiment directly towards the end of the novel, stating, “Everybody talks about genocides around the world, but when the killing is slow and spread over a hundred...