The Interrogator acts as the speaker of the poem, adopting the persona of a law enforcement agent. They represent systems such as the police force, ICE, border patrol, or homeland security. They speak with the authority of the government and use rapid, invasive questions to assert control over the person they have detained. Despite holding institutional power and dictating the terms of the encounter, they project a deep-seated fear of the suspect's cultural differences and physical presence.

The Suspect is the non-white addressee of the poem, currently detained and questioned by an agent of the state. They stand mute with wide eyes and their hands raised in the air, enduring an aggressive line of questioning about their motives, body, and emotions. Their physical expressiveness, noted by the interrogator as a leaping chest and a tendency for dancing, directly challenges the institutional demand for conformity.

Represented by the plural pronouns "we" and "us" in the text, The State embodies the United States government, law enforcement agencies, and a historically white power structure. This collective entity operates on preemptive fear and mistrust, utilizing systems of policing and border control to interrogate and categorize non-white individuals as threats. They view emotional empathy as a disruption to their dominance.

This collective group consists of Black, Muslim, immigrant, and Indigenous people who have historically suffered violence under United States law enforcement and systemic racism. Their historical mistreatment by the state creates a lingering paranoia within the authorities, who fear retribution from current suspects. The state uses passive grammatical structures to avoid taking direct responsibility for their suffering.