Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of racism, graphic violence, bullying, and antigay bias.

Racism impacts the lives of three generations of Newberrys in Swift River. While the form that racism takes shifts over time, becoming slightly subtler as societal norms shift, the animus toward Black people generally and the Newberry family specifically persists through the lives of Aunt Clara, Pop, and Diamond.

In 1915, Clara experiences direct and unapologetic racism. The most obvious example is Swift River’s status as a “sundown town”—a place where Black people cannot go after dark. The announcement of this underscores the racism that motivates it, as the signs posted in Swift River read, “N*****, DON’T LET THE SUN GO DOWN ON YOU IN SWIFT RIVER” (83). Clara consequently has to be very cautious not to be caught out in town after dark, which limits her activities and causes anxiety. Clara says, for example, “I watch the sun all day. Even inside I know exactly where it is in the sky. I feel the dark creeping up on me until it pounces, blacking out my freedom” (83). The constant awareness of the time of day and the looming threat of promised violence illustrate the far-reaching effects of racism, which range from the psychological (Clara’s anxiety) to the practical (the restriction of Clara’s movements). Moreover, the novel underscores that the threat of violence is not idle: When Clara and Jacques find themselves out after dark, they hide in the woods when they hear a dog and a gun cocking, preferring the risk posed by “bears and bobcats” to that of the townsfolk (222). Overall, the fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time impacts all of Clara’s decisions and is the result of explicit threats of racist violence.

Pop, as a member of the generation that follows Clara, experiences racism as well, but the threats are slightly more veiled. His experience of racism centers especially on his employment challenges, as Diamond explains: “[S]omeone at the mill is saying mean things to him, accusing him of things he didn’t do. ‘Imagine that meanness making cuts all over his body that his clothes cover up,’ [Ma] says. ‘Sometimes you can accidentally bump into a sore spot and not even know it’” (56). These rumors and false accusations take a psychological toll, as Ma notes, but they also have practical effects, resulting in the loss of his job and difficulties finding a new one. Eventually, only Pop’s garden remains as a way of providing for his family, even without a job. However, one day he finds a basketball has been thrown into his garden, destroying some plants. Later, the garden is fully—and intentionally—destroyed, wounding Pop’s pride and also endangering his family, who depend on the food he grows. His story reveals that racism does not have to be explicit to cause significant harm to the physical and mental well-being of those who experience it. 

Diamond’s experience of racism partially overlaps with her father’s, as home life becomes strained due to the stress Pop is under—a testament to the fact that racism’s impact is intergenerational not simply because it exists across generations but also because the trauma builds on itself. Nor does the racism disappear when Pop does. She says of school, for instance:

The kids call my dad ‘N***** Jim’ because: he’s Black, he’s somewhere in a river, and he has no shoes. Mrs. Durkin hands out detentions, hugs me, and pulls her long fingernails through my knotted curls, saying, Kids can be so cruel but if you just ignore them they’ll leave you alone. I cry into her chest because she’s so nice and so wrong, and I wish I didn’t know this with such certainty (2). 

The passage highlights the explicit and implicit ways racism manifests in Diamond’s life. The students’ use of slurs is clearly racist, but Diamond’s teacher, though well-meaning, also facilitates a racist environment: Mrs. Durkin acts as though the bullying Diamond experiences is just like any other bullying, while even at a young age, Diamond knows that racial prejudice cannot be overcome by ignoring it. Indeed, racism is so embedded in the town that even people who care for Diamond, like Shelly, at times say racist things and do not even realize that they have done so. 

In showing the experiences of three generations of Newberrys, the novel implies a continuum between more and less explicit forms of racism, implying that racism has not so much declined as evolved over time. The threat the characters face remains constant, a source of trauma that both unites the generations and compounds across them.