Racism

In The City We Became, N. K. Jemisin thematically explores racism by manifesting white supremacy as a mythical monster. The author parallels a complex cultural fight against prejudice to a more concrete battle of good versus evil, in order to unpack the ways in which racism terrorizes people of color on both a personal and systematic scale. Throughout the novel, the Enemy is attacking New York City. As the avatars fight back it continues to take different forms; white tendrils, The Better New York Foundation, and the Woman in White.

Jemisin uses the white tendrils to symbolize the ways in which racism infects the individual. The tendrils body snatch willing white hosts, erase cultural identity, and surveil the avatars' effort to fight against it. When the Woman in White talks to Aislyn, a white woman, she reinforces Aislyn’s pre-existing association of “evil with specific, easily...