We Are Not Like Them

One of the ways that race is most clearly navigated between Riley and Jenny is through their hair. Even when they see each other for the first time at the novel’s beginning, they both mention the other’s hair. Jenny’s long, shiny, smooth blonde hair is cut into a bob, and Riley is growing out her bangs. Jenny touches Riley’s hair, and Riley thinks that she is the only woman she would let do that. Hair, for the women, is a coded discussion of race. This is especially true when they are children: Their nicknames for each other are “Pony […] for my long blond ponytail I wore every single day in elementary school […] And Puff for Riley, for the trademark Afro puffs she wore atop her head from grade one through five” (33). Hair symbolizes the difference in race between the women and highlights that the racial tension in their relationship has not emerged since the shooting but rather grown. Like their hair, it has always been there.

Silence is a repeating motif in this novel for many characters. Riley struggles with silence about her own experience. As a Black woman, she has a specific experience walking through the world: “Even the same tired insults hurt—hate doesn’t have to be inspired to cut you.