Institutional Racism Theme Analysis

In contrast to the overt, purposeful racism as espoused by Turk Bauer and the white supremacists he works with, Small Great Things also explores how racism functions in society among white people who don't believe themselves to be racist. Kennedy brightly quips in her first meeting with Ruth that she "doesn't see race" and that "the human race is what matters," statements that make Ruth—a black woman who experiences prejudice every day at the hands of well-meaning but unwittingly racist white people—feel as though Kennedy is woefully ignorant, naïve, and sees herself as a white savior. In particular, Small Great Things pays close attention to how this brand of racism is baked into everyday life, normalized, and is subsequently made invisible to people like Kennedy.

The novel first shows how institutional racism functions by following Ruth through several normal shifts at the hospital. When accompanied by a white nursing student who's ten years younger than Ruth, a patient speaks to the nursing student as though she's the one in charge; a white woman in the cafeteria grabs her purse to hold it closer when Ruth approaches to help her at the coffee station; and Ruth's coworkers brush off Marie's sticky note that no African-American staff are to care for Davis as a valid request on the part of Davis's parents, likening it to a patient's request for a female doctor. For the white employees at the hospital, all of these occurrences can be explained away as simple misunderstandings with no malice behind them. They're able to do this because they don't believe they're racist and therefore, don't understand the very real negative effects that these actions have on Ruth, even if those effects are unintended. For Ruth, these experiences make her question her own sanity and whether or not she's seeing racism where there is none. Like her coworkers, Ruth wants to think the best of people, but she finds it hard to do so when white people like the old woman inadvertently show Ruth that they think she's more likely to steal than a white person, or when Corinne and Marie (and therefore the hospital system as a whole) end up siding with a white supremacist despite insisting they're not racist.

Kennedy is one of the novel's worst offenders when it comes to this entrenched and, in the eyes of white people, invisible racism, which makes it much harder for her to connect with Ruth and effectively represent her in the courtroom. Recognizing that she has little choice in a lawyer, Ruth takes it upon herself to expose Kennedy to things that make her see that, even though she doesn't think of herself as racist, she still has no idea what it's like to move through the world as a black person. When the two women go shopping together, Kennedy soon becomes annoyed at the clerk who keeps checking up on her and Ruth. It takes her several minutes to realize that the clerk is afraid that Ruth is going to shoplift. She also notices that, when they leave the store with a group of other shoppers, Ruth—the only black person in the group—is also the only person to have her bag checked. While these are considered “microaggressions” on a daily level, they also reflect the fact that black people are more likely to be arrested and serve longer sentences than white people for the same offense.

The night before the last day of trial, Kennedy takes these exercises a step further by walking around a low-income and predominately black neighborhood. Kennedy notices that the residents on the street seem afraid of her and refuse to speak to her, while she also recognizes that, because she's the only white person on the streets, she feels alone and as though she's in danger. While Kennedy understands the limits of this exercise (it’s only one day, not a lifetime), it does increase her capacity to empathize with Ruth—and in doing so, suggests that one of the most effective ways to tackle one's inherent biases is to experience situations that place one in a minority role.

With this knowledge in place, Kennedy approaches the jury on the final day of court with a real-life analogy to help them visualize this kind of racism: Davis was born on a Thursday, which meant that a state-mandated blood test identifying the genetic problem that likely contributed to his death wasn't run until well after his death on Saturday. Had Davis been born on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, next-day or two-day lab results could've prevented his death—in other words, he was at an unfair advantage, simply because he was born late in the week. While this analogy is a powerful motivator for a majority of the jury and eleven of the twelve jurors find Ruth innocent, juror number 12—a white teacher who teaches in an integrated classroom and therefore believes she's not racist—is the only one who refuses to agree to acquit Ruth of the crimes brought against her by the state.

Juror number 12's unwillingness to be swayed by Kennedy's analogy, while also insisting she's not racist, reminds the reader that not everyone is ready or willing to accept the existence of institutional racism as fact—and further, that those people have an outsize amount of power in society to continue to promote a racist system of doing things. In other words, while Turk may have been able to reform his own personally racist beliefs through empathy and love, institutional racism requires everyone to think critically about how power systems empower some people, while hurting others. In this way, Kennedy's shift to becoming aware of institutional racism acts as a powerful example of what's possible when a white person recognizes that people of color are at an unfair advantage, not just in the courts but in every aspect of their lives. With this, the novel acts as a wakeup call to white readers to think critically about the systems around them and, most importantly, to listen to people like Ruth when they say that things aren't fair.