The Office of Historical Corrections

The stories in the collection encourage the intersectional analysis of the ways that skin color and gender interact to create unique forms of discrimination and privilege. In addition to exploring racial discrimination, they also explore how gender complicates or exacerbates this racism. In particular, three stories explore four different skin color/gender pairings and how they create unique situations.

In “Boys Go to Jupiter,” the protagonist, Claire, is a white woman. As such, she has privilege that her hallmate—Carmen, a Black woman—does not. With little thought as to what the flag represents, she first wears the Confederate flag bathing suit to anger her stepmother without considering why she might find it offensive in the first place. After her photo gains traction on the internet, she not only refuses to acknowledge her wrongdoing but takes it a step further, provoking Carmen and other classmates by displaying more Confederate flags. Unlike her friend, Aaron, a Black man who is killed because white men assume he is trying to harm a white woman, Claire fears no repercussions for her actions. While she receives hate mail, the meeting with the school administration makes it clear that there are no consequences, because her actions are protected as freedom of speech. On top of this, she suggests that she is the victim and aligns herself with white supremacists because they are sympathetic toward her. While Danielle  Evans humanizes Claire by discussing her mother’s death and her frustration over receiving both unsolicited sexual photos and death threats, her position as a white woman both shields her from serious consequences and prevents her from needing to think deeply about her actions.

Similarly, in “The Office of Historical Corrections,” Evans explores what it means to be a white man through Nick, in contrast to Cassie’s experience as a Black woman. Cassie asks Nick to join her on her trip to Wisconsin because he provides a degree of protection and ease; she will face discrimination because she is Black, and as a white man, he is able to comfort people and attain things that she cannot. As Cassie contrasts Nick with herself, she thinks how “little attention a white man needed to devote to […] performance” (208), whereas she needs to contemplate everything she says and always be aware of her surroundings. Additionally, as she considers her relationship with Daniel, she thinks about how she “had to learn again how to watch a man move through the world and calibrate his every step to be disarming” (210). In other words, Daniel—as a Black man—is inherently viewed as dangerous and needs to actively combat this stereotype. Interestingly, Cassie is “ashamed” of the “person [she] became when [she] was with [Nick], cockier, more reckless, willing to take it all for granted” (210-11). Her own conscience battles with the fact that she enjoys and craves the privilege she has when she is with a white man, able to ignore the prejudice that she and Daniel face as a Black woman and Black man.

Conversely, Rena in “Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain” faces discrimination due to her status as a Black woman. While Rena is promiscuous, she never tries to seduce JT—they are simply friends. Dori is white, while Rena is Black, and even though Dori does not know about Rena’s sexual conquests, she still treats her with distrust. Dori, then, is playing into the Jezebel stereotype in which Black women are viewed as oversexualized, promiscuous, and interested in luring white men into having sex with them. Unable to combat her own internalized racism—despite JT and Rena’s insistence that nothing ever happened between them—Dori distrusts Rena throughout their wedding weekend, tasking one of her bridesmaids with breaking up conversations between Rena and JT and treating Rena coldly. After JT leaves, the first thing Dori does is come to Rena’s room, where Rena “pretends not to notice [her] scanning the room for any indication of her duplicity” (35). This discrimination is unique to Rena’s gender and skin color, as Dori has no reason to assume Rena is seducing her fiancé and doesn’t show this same suspicion about other women. While Rena does her best to assuage Dori’s distrust—making it clear that she slept with Michael, for example—Dori only believes her once the two women get to know each other better, showing how Dori’s feelings are rooted in stereotypes more than anything else.

These stories show the unique experiences of Black, white, male, and female characters—and how each experiences life based on which social groups they belong to. In doing so, Evans explores the key role that intersectionality plays in examining discrimination in the 21st century. While sexist and racist bias are very real issues, it is often not enough to look at how one or the other impacts someone’s life. Instead, Evans presents situations where both are important, shaping these characters’ realities.